Happy Songkran!

I’m back in Thailand and enjoying the biggest and baddest holiday of the year, Songkran (Thai New Year). This multi-day celebration consists of parades, ceremonies, concerts, contests, food, festivals, and water. Water? For 3+ days, the entire country is engaged in a large-scale water fight with the aid of squirt guns, buckets, hoses, bottles, etc. It’s virtually impossible to walk down the road without being victim to an icy cold bucket of water down the back or a spray to the head from a Super Soaker 3000. This longtime tradition dates back several hundred years when Thais celebrated the new year by bathing Buddha images with holy water and pouring a small amount of water on one another for good luck and good fortune. Somewhere along the line, this once tranquil and sacred tradition turned into a crazed, 3-day water fight.

I’m ringing in the new year in Chiang Mai, a city infamous for its massive Songkran celebration. In fact, they like Songkran so much here that the water fights go on for four, not the usual three, days. Streets are lined with kids and adults, water guns and buckets in hand, ready to soak any unassuming or assuming passerby. Traffic moves slowly on the main roads because drivers and passengers participate in these “water wars” too. Pickup trucks cruise along the street while the 10 or 20 revelers in the back splash buckets of water on everyone in sight. Those standing alongside the road spray back with their turbo soakers or hoses. It seems like nearly every shop, regardless of what it normally carries, is selling an array of water gear and ammunition. My weapon of choice: a small, pocket-sized squirt gun. Yes, it lacks the power and general oomph of a bigger, flashier water gun, but this little guy can be whipped out at a moment’s notice, attacking people when they least expect. And it’s small and easy to carry around.

Today I wanted to walk around the city without water dripping from my shorts and oozing from my sandals so I thought, “I’ll use the back roads where I won’t be targeted.” Everything is going according to plan. No one is around and I am staying dry. I beat the system. Not five minutes after I’m congratulating myself for my craftiness does a little girl come up behind me and throw a giant bucket of water down my back, giggling all the while. I laugh too. No problem. It’s scorching hot so I’ll dry off soon enough. I walk more. Nearly dry, I turn the corner and head down another seemingly deserted road and see a young boy armed with a powerful looking super soaker on one side of the road, his father on the other holding a hose. I can turn around and run and be a Songkran loser, or I can walk forward boldly, accepting my fate. I choose the latter and sure enough, I am attacked in full force. This is when my measly squirt gun doesn’t look so good. This pattern – get wet, almost dry, get wet again – continued for most of the day. I quickly realized that it would be impossible to stay dry unless I stayed indoors all day (missing out on the other festivities).

Lesson learned: You can't fight Songkran.

A bit of Songkran revelry (Note: this was fairly early in the day so the atmosphere is moderately subdued)

One of several Songkran parades