Songkran – Thai New Year | Martin & Adel travel blog

On Tuesday the 12th I was sitting in a restaurant in a busy Chiang Mai street. I was enjoying Cesar salad, aircon and ok wifi and I was getting excited about what was happening outside the restaurant!

Songkran is a Thai New Year festival celebrated by splashing water. Originally, gentle pouring of water over shoulder was meant for families and elders as a symbol of blessing. Nowadays the event has turned into water madness (especially in Bangkok’s Khao San Road and Chiang Mai – I think almost everywhere). People are using water guns, buckets, water hoses (!) and fill it with any water around. Since Chiang Mai’s old town is all surrounded by a moat, they used that. It’s not exactly cleen (a girl in our guesthouse got some infection in her bug bites from that dirty water). Also, they used ice to make the water ice cold. For me it was always a big surprise, especially when I happened to get a full bucket all over my head, gun shot or full budy splash.. In the heat it helps a big time so it’s like thanks..but no thanks!

It was somehow possible to avoid the biggest water splashing. We of course got right into it to enjoy the unique possibility to throw water on anyone (even monk or policeman-but gently) and get only laugh back in the response. I enjoyed this way of celebrating new year much more than the traditional getting drunk way. Not that people were not drinking here. I’m surprised there is any beer left in Chiang Mai after Songkran. But we didn’t drink much, maybe because of the heat that is making us feel it differently, stronger.

I should get back to the beggining. So I was sitting in the restaurant and wrote exciting messages to Martin who was still in Prague. I expected the event to start the next day (according to offical dates) so I was caught by surprise when I got to the restaurant pretty soaked. I was wondering how I was going to escape it because I was carrying my full electronic equipment (iphone, ipad, gopro, external batery, charger)..you can imagine.
Suddenly there appeared a procession before the restaurant and so I decided that my electronics is not a problem anymore…

I quickly paid and went out to follow the crowd. There were probably hundreds or maybe thousands of people. You can imagine it is hard to find anyone if you are trying. So it was a great surprise that at the gate I ran into Katie! Katie is a girl I met just two days before at the massage course. She was there with her friend Jonathan. They were also just going for a short walk and planned to get back soon (Jonathan didn’t even wear shoes!). They run into the procession and followed it like me. Together we then continued to walk around, splash water onto people or into tuk tuks all day (Jonathan still with no shoes) and also the next day. I’m so glad I ran into Katie and Jonathan. They were so much fun to hang around. For example when Katie got into a dance fight with a Thai girl (and she did great!) or when Jonathan got drunk from three shots of Slivovice (such a cheap drunk!) and got all funny and nicely silly or when Katie gave Jonathan massage in the restaurant. We separated the third Songkran day when Martin arrived. I hope they are having a great time now.

Martin was all excited to finally experience Songkran that he didn’t even mind that I picked him up by a bike so we had to walk through the city and get wet on the way to our hotel. Also he didn’t (almost) mind the fact I provided him with a monkey weapon. We went straight into the center of water fights. I didn’t think I could get more wet but I did. We got soaked to the bone. And many many times…