April 11-16, 2002: You'd think the entire country had gone mad. Au contraire, this may be the way they stay sane, in crazy traffic, terrific heat, and an economy that's really gone downhill the last few years.
Songkran is the biggest holiday of the year in Thailand. It's the Buddhist New Year, and there are a variety of religious ceremonies that take place: images of the Buddha are gently washed; water is poured over venerated elders' hands. People visit their wats (temples) and make merit for the next life by making donations. Similar fetes go on in neighboring Buddhist countries — but I don't think any of them top Thailand's.
...and there's this totally raucous party everywhere else, all over the country. There are only a few photos, because the biggest part of songkran is getting totally, utterly, to-your-knickers soaked. Several times a day. Nobody that ventures out is "safe" — but hell, this is a party — why be "safe"?
The photo above was taken from inside our car (you can see a drop of water on the windshield), and it shows one Reveler dousing a hapless Motorcyclist. In "little" Chiang Mai, imagine this seen repeated thousands of times a day, for the better part of the week. How's it work?
First off, the holiday in CM "officially" extends from
around April 11th to April
15th
(what a great opportunity for last minute tax-filers!). Elsewhere
it may start earlier, end later, or both. During that time, there
are a variety of events ("Paying homage to Buddha Sihingh[sic]
image, likay (Thai Traditional Opera), movies, merit making by
coin offering into monks' black bowl, traditional games[sic] show,
traditional nortem[sic] Thai drumming contest, local cultural performances")
reads the English listing of daytime events. We missed most of
these. Ok, we missed all of these.
But the most evident sign of a city-wide block party in progress is the astonishing traffic jam and the fact that there is nary a dry spot in the entire city. Pickup trucks rule the roads: filled with with willing party-participants (mostly, but by no means exclusively, kids) and bucks, sometimes truckbed-fulls of water, and... weapons. Water pistols. Super-soakers. Plastic pans. Anything that'll convey water.
We
contributed to this wonderful madness. On Sunday, 4/14, Kathy,
Judy (Wollen, a Heifer staff member), Pramote (Director) and his
wife, Surin (young Volunteer) and 437 kids (ok maybe only 10) all
piled into Judy's pickup truck. Pramote and wife were in the cab, everybody
else was in the bed — along with two massive water containers.
Three "adults", 50 gallons of water, and nearly a dozen
kids. "Ook" (Staffer) and a friend of his joined us a
bit later — but felt a little cramped and found another truck quickly.
So it was a bit like the picture at the top,
but with 3-5 more adults, and a closed tailgate We set about
to, as they say, play Songkran. By the way, these are somebody
else's kids, above/left.
The basic idea is to drive around the walled city (which conveniently has a moat around it, which is filled (daily, perhaps during Songkran) with water. We load our guns etc. and start spraying everybody within reach. Motorcyclist are especially prized, as are all farangs. Even from other farangs; we just seem like we need to partake.
Everybody is laughing. Everybody is spraying us with water as we're spraying them. Then the unthinkable happens: we run out of water. We're sitting ducks. Actually it's not unthinkable at all, it's planned. Moments after we run short, we pull up to a water filling station: somebody has a huge pump running with what look like fire hoses, sucking not-especially-clean water out of the moat and into our buckets. We pay for this and head on into the frey. The traffic crawls, it's so slow that at some point Surin and I get out of the truck and walk along side. It's easier and a lot less cramped. This way get can get more water too. We're on one of Chiang Mai's major roads, and the traffic is so slow and packed that you can walk between the trucks. At your peril, of course.
But mere water, mere guns? It's not enough. There are vendors selling big blocks of ice. Getting splashed with a bucket of of tepid water on a 90 degree day is entertaining, for sure. But getting splashed with a bucket of 40 degree water on a 90 degree day — now that is memorable!
There are some decent photos from Phuket's Songkran here. Will have some more of our own after we get a disposable camera developed — Songkran is no place for a $800 digital unit!