Songkran De-Grinched April 14, 2005
Posted by Martin in : Thailand , trackbackI nearly got as far as spending April in India to escape the hottest time of year here. Yesterday got to 41 degrees C (104 degrees F) and I didn’t step out of the hotel all day.
Today we celebrated Thai New Year Songkran whereby every Thai person spends a few days having water fights and painting revellers with cooling powder. In Bangkok it gets a bit annoying, I blame the farangs who don’t know when to moderate their behaviour and generally I try to stay away from the tourist spots there. This year Thailand experienced about 9,000 traffic-related accidents - generally caused from speeding, drink-driving and having water thrown all over motorcycle drivers.
This year in Khon Kaen I had a great time. Tik collected me in the morning and took me to her relatives. I smiled and nodded and the younger family members poured scented water over the hands of the the eldest family member to offer blessings. I met a number of Tiks cousins, aunts and uncles.
As you’ll note from the photo above, Songkgran is a time of loud silly clothes. Tik’s mum gave me a traditional flower necklace as well to presumably make me look like a native. On leaving the family; Tik, myself, Tik’s sister Toon and their younger cousin Ying all drove our car towards “Thannon Khao Neo” - the main party street in Khon Kaen.
We bought a bucket each and Tik bought some cooling powder and we had a lot of fun. People in Khon Kaen seem to play by the rules. People who obviously looked liked they didn’t want to get wet were left alone. The roads were lined with water ’stations’ - usually hose pipes filling barrels of water so that anybody can fill their buckets or water guns and the streets were full of party-goers, huge speaker systems blaring dance music, stages for dancers, street vendors selling cooling powder, drinks and snacks.
It was assuring to see that very few Thais were drinking beer. Apparently this year the governent have been trying to discourage alcohol use and it was noticable in how much more fun the event was. Alcohol wasn’t available for sale on the main roads and Pepsi were the main sponsors and vendors. In Bangkok I was often so embarrassed to see farangs deliberately targetting businessmen with buckets of iced water, throwing beer around, and groping girls. Songkran in Khon Kaen was very much a family event. I highly commend the Thai’s (and the tourists alike) on conducting themselves so well here. I could not imagine such a trouble-free fun and friendly event anywhere else in the world.
I did find it amusing that every year the Thai government take action to prevent women wearing spaghetti-strap tops for Songkran. Songran itself is probably Thailand’s most famous festival and the government are keen not to have the world’s media zooming their cameras on scantilly dressed Thai girls (which is obviously a shame). It seems they’ve given up this year trying to ban spaghetti-straps although bans were made last year. Instead this wonderful piece of propaganda was published in Thailand’s government-friendly newspaper.
Spaghetti strap girls warned of disease risk
I was impressed to be able to participate in a street foam-party. A plastic barrier was constructed, about 10 metres squared and it was filled with foam reaching to head height. Befitting the entire event, it went smoothly, safely and was a very fun experience.
We left the partying exhausted and went back to our hotel. I enjoyed a game of Rummikub with Tik, Toon and Ying as it is a perfect game to play without any problems of language barriers.
My only regret this year was not having the chance to take photos. I decided that rather than stress over getting my camera damaged I’d spend my time enjoying myself and relaxing instead. I’ll search on the internet later to see if I can get hold of some photos of Songran 2005 in Khon Kaen.
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