Songkran...

After the last few hectic days with the tsunami evacuation, having my phone stolen etc... the need for some fun was very high on the agenda!  Luckily, two days after the evacuation was the Thai New Year festival of Songkran.  With the searing heat of over 35°C the Thai’s know the best way to celebrate this; with a huge water fight.  The water is symbolic as it represents washing away the old year and being cleansed for the year ahead.  Depending on where you are in the country the celebrations can last from 1 day in the South to 7 days in the Northern cities such as Chiang Mai.  Ours lasted only 1; which was in fact a blessing as I was aching enough after a few hours!

That morning I needed to go to the Police station to report my stolen phone, which was about a 20 minute walk through the town.  It was still really early; so on the way there we managed to get only slightly wet with a few sprays from kids running past.  The way back was completely different.  Half way back to the hotel I felt like I’d been thrown into a swimming pool.  In the space of 30 minutes hoards of people had taken to the street and the water fight had more than begun.  All of the shops that are usually spilling out onto the street were closed and boarded up, locals had brought massive water tanks onto the streets for people to re-fill their water guns as they went past and pick-up trucks were also circling the streets, filled with people with buckets throwing water over anybody that got in the way.

Walking back from the Police station we picked up a couple of big water guns to have some sort of defence against the hoards of people that were now lining the streets.  We made it back to the hotel, quickly changed into board shorts and ventured out once again; saturating anybody that got in the way.

The atmosphere was so different than anything that I’ve seen before in Thailand.  All of the locals had got together and didn’t seem to have a care in the world.  All of the kids were running around with buckets of water trying to soak the westerners that were walking through and the elderly were also well equipped with water guns whilst lounging back in their chairs.

We found that the trick to having the best water gun was to fill the tank first full of ice cubes before pouring the water in, which gave everyone that was squirted a little wake-up boost!  The guys in the Indian restaurants were the best at this and were throwing buckets of ice cold water over people going past in the open backed trucks or on motorcycles.

After a couple of hours fun, we took a break and grabbed some lunch in McDonalds – as this was one of the only places open – and then hit the streets again.  It was an extremely exhausting day which started to wind down at sunset; however when we eventually ventured out after dark in search of dinner; we had to still keeps our wits about us as there were children still hiding around every corner waiting to soak someone!

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