Songkran Festival

Until 1940, Thailand’s calendar year began on April 13^th then it was changed to January 1^st to coincide with Western nations. Even so, the original April 13^th celebration is still a major holiday called Songkran, The Water Festival.

This is the hottest time of the year and a water festival is fitting. The festival goes on for several days and the major activity of this occasion involves people pouring, squirting, or throwing water on each other.

I have read that “in the good old days”, Songkran was a time to forgive all of the animosity and resentments of the past year and the water symbolized the washing away of those feelings. A person would dip a small branch covered in leaves into a bowl of water with flower blossoms floating on top, and then gently sprinkle passers-by. Now it’s an all-out water fight.  But it’s playful and the whole population takes part – even security guards and policemen get wet.

Darrel and I joined up with Julie and Steve of S/Y Aqua Dreams, bought ourselves some big water guns, and joined the festivities at 1:00 at Nai Yang Park. It was a hoot – we got soaking wet, dried off while we enjoyed a pop singer accompanied by “lady-boy” dancers, then got wet again as we worked our way out of the park. Many of the youngsters plastered us with wet baby-powder coloured with a washable dye. I think it’s supposed to be protection from the sun, but it’s probably also to make us all look silly.

We decided it might be nice to dry off for the evening, go for a cool beer, and then head to the beach where there was more live entertainment, free food and cheap drinks.

So we found a lively pub, held our water guns above our heads, and announced “We come in peace”. That didn’t matter – we were soaked once again. We did our best to get even. When we finally settled down and ordered our beers, we were seen as allies and were left in peace … for a short while. We were warned: “If the passers-by dwindle, we turn on ourselves.” And so we did.

I kept busy covering my glass so the rather unclean water wouldn’t contaminate my drink. I was dancing, too, but managed to not spill. The worst part was that the patrons discovered some melted ice, and that was generously dumped on all of us. Brrrrr. After a couple of drinks, and with the sun setting, we thought it best to move out of the water-war zone, to the beach for the feast.

It was a fabulous, fun, colourful celebration, even if we didn’t get to sing Auld Lang Syne.

Darrel, Steve and Julie, showing no respect for the photographer.

There was lots of colourful talent on stage.

The little guy on the left certainly had fun at Songkran.

We were brave enough to squirt these guys. They laughed, then retaliated.
Trucks kept parading through the park, loaded with people and water tanks.

This appeared to be a "neutral zone" which we respected.

There were scads of colourful food stalls and barbeques, so we didn't go hungry.

Maybe next year we'll get a water gun like this little fella's.

This is where we declared a truce, which lasted for about 20 seconds.
I gave my gun to a young lad here.
The other guns were given to boys on the beach.
We are once again unarmed.