AMAZING EXPERIENCES

Songkran in Thailand

The Songkran Festival is a three-day celebration for Thai New Year. We arrived just in time for the final day of festivities. One of the key Songkran activities is flinging water on each other. I'm not talking about the tradition of delicately pouring water over someone's hands to symbolically cleanse them for the new year. Noooo. I'm talking about full on buckets of water, garden hoses, squirt guns and water bazookas. Sarah and I got right into the trickle of things with our guesthouse comrades. We set up an ambush on either side of the road and soaked anyone who came near us. We had so much fun and couldn't keep the smiles off our faces (even though we really wanted to keep our mouths closed against incoming water attacks!).

After several hours of drenching passers-by and a few Thai whiskeys with our new friend Add, we jumped in the back of the neighbor's truck with Mike and went riding down to the moat for some of the major action. I have never been in such an intense water fight (and I had an older brother and sister). People were coming at us from every direction and I think we got some additional attention just because we are farangs (westerners). Everyone was happy. It was a glorious sight to behold. An entire community came together to have a party and they were truly enjoying themselves. What's more, it didn't get out of hand as it likely would have done in the states (think Raider football). So even though I had moat water poured on me for hours and hours and my eyesight was a little blurry for a few days from the direct squirt gun hits to the eyeballs, I loved celebrating new year Thai style. Sawatdee Bee Mai! (Happy New Year!)

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