Songkran - Thai New Year

We have been very lucky to accidentally find celebrations and holidays as we have traveled. Somehow, we have now experienced three New Years in 2007. The newest one is Songkran, the Thai New Year.

Songkran is celebrated by an enormous three day water fight. It really isn't a water fight as much as it is a mutual soaking by thousands and thousands of Thai people. We are staying near Khao Sahn Road, the equivalent of the French Quarter in New Orleans, so we are pretty much right in the middle of one of the hugest water fights in the country. The other part of the celebration is to mix flour and water and spread it over each other (mostly in the face). Neither Erin nor I could figure out this part of the celebration, but you can see lots of white faces in some of the photos from how much flour has been flung.

The streets were lined with vendors selling water and sodas and beer to drink, as well as vendors selling water to fling. Lots of folks had the most technical water guns and others had simple pails and cups. (The boy below is carrying a water gun almost as big as he is.) The worst/best part of the vendors was that the ones selling cold drinks would often spray the ice cold water at those of us passing by. It was terrible for about two seconds because you would feel frozen, but then again it was about 95 degrees out so it also had a very cooling effect.

We had a wonderful time, except for one thing which will be explained in the next post.