Songkran

Sawatdee Be Mai khop! That means (I think) Happy New Year in Thai. Songkran is their three-day new years festival that we helped usher in on Monday with the Chiang Mai Songkran parade through town. It is insane. It is like a regular parade, but under water. There are bands, floats, dancing girls, banners, costumes. Many of the floats have a shrine with a Buddha statue. Apparently, Songkran is the one time of year when the Buddha statues get washed, so the Thais all get a bucket of water and douse the statue as it’s going by on the float. There are a lot of Thais and a lot of buckets of water. And the poor guy (or monk) who is responsible for wiping off each Buddha statue gets entirely soaked – for about 5 hours. And this is just the start of the water throwing. It has become tradition also to throw water on each other as a sign of good luck for the new year. Since it is generally hot, this is a nice refreshing tradition. To a point. After five hours of constant spraying from squirt guns, buckets, cups, hoses, barrels, and sprinklers, we felt very blessed by the Thais. Since we got to march in the parade (with the University International Center) we got much attention, and water. It was an amazing, crazy experience.

For the remainder of the three day holiday, there are constant roving gangs of street thugs who ride in the back of pick-up trucks and dump water on whomever they can. Shop owners set up a barrel of water in front of their store and douse anyone walking by. Kids all have squirt guns and feel obliged to spray you as you go about your activiites. Even little old ladies, seemingly so innocent, typically have a bucket of water nearby and will politely wish you well as they pour a cup of cold water down your back. Our group of family and Cal Poly students are taking turns going out and participating in the madness and hiding out in the relative safety of our hotel. Happy New Year!