The title is no joke, I'm telling you. The official name of this Thai festival is 'Songkran' which basically Thai New Year. People said that the best place to be was in Chiang Mai so that's where we went. We had to book out bus tickets weeks in advance and even then it was a small challenge to find some. After a few tries we managed to find a company with tickets. Sorted. We arrived early in the morning the day before it started. That was good as it meant we would be able to get to where we were staying without getting wet. We went back to sleep for a bit as it had been a sleepless night on the bus. When we woke we were expecting to have a nice relaxing day but we were told that it had started. We sorted ourselves out, bought some water guns and made our way to the main square. When we arrived it was mad. It was just a massive water fight! Driving in the road were pick-up trucks and in the back were people with barrels of water throwing it everywhere. On the paths were buckets so you could fill up your water and so many people just going mad and having fun. You wouldn't be able to walk down the street without getting soaked. We have to leave our bags behind and put our phones and money in a waterproof pouch. It was so much fun. People even had ice water which was really cold but also really nice in the heat of the day. After acting like kids for a few hours we made our way back to have showers as some of the water used was canal water which wasn't the nicest smelling thing! Once we were clean we went out for dinner before coming back to chill out as it was a good and tiring day.
The next day it was raining. Not a good thing for a water fight but it stopped no one. To start with we went to a temple to give back sand. Basically in the past year whenever you leave a temple you take away some of the sand/dirt from the temple grounds. With the Thai New Year you give back what you have taken. The water throwing is to clean yourself from all the bad things in the past year so you are clean for the new year. After that we went to the main square to wait for the parade. Whilst there we got very wet again. As the sun wasn't out though the ice water wasn't as nice any more. The parade was good fun. Each of the main Buddha's from all the main temples we brought round and we all put water on the Buddha's to clean them for the new year and to bring good luck.
Day three and the sun was shining which was good. Bring on the ice water! After having a late night (3am) we didn't really get up until 1 in the afternoon. We then went out and danced and threw water to our hearts content. It was a lot of fun and we got very wet again for the third day in a row.
Day four and the last day of Songkran. We were lucky enough to have the sun shining so the ice water wouldn't be a problem. When we got to the main place soaking wet already, everything was in full swing. We spent some time just throwing and shooting water and anyone and everyone before going for a walk along the canal. A small mistake. The canal was absolutely filthy and horrible and people were chucking bucket loads of it at us with a lot of force. We quickly changed our plans and went back to the gate area where the water that was thrown was much nicer. For the next few hours we danced our hearts out taking small breaks to do some water fighting with someone who is walking by. It went on for longer on this day as it was the last one so at around 8pm, we walked back home and I couldn't wait for a nice warm shower. This was the day that I attempted to take some pictures. It was quite hard as if I had my camera,it would have been covered in water and that would have been the end of that. Instead I put my phone in a plastic wallet and tried to take pictures through that. They were okay but the pictures that P-Aim took were a lot better. The plastic wallet I had wasn't too good either and when I tried to take some more pictures I found out that it had completely died! At the time I thought that it had run out of battery as in all the other days, it only broke a little bit (I know it managed to break in some way everyday!). On the first couple of days it was just some of the keys. It always ended up being the menu key or the star key which meant that I could never unlock my phone. Luckily, it's a Nokia so it managed to fix its self as these sturdy types do. On the final day though, when trying to take pictures, people would fire at my phone so when I got back and went to charge it, I realised that there was a lot of water under the screen. I let it dry for the night before putting it anywhere near any charger. It's fixed though. The only thing is that the screen is a cloudy and has weird lines but its usable which is all that matters isn't it? This festival has been one of the best parts of the year as it was so much fun. If I have the chance I am definitely coming back to Thailand to experience it in Si Saket or something. The only thing I didn't like were the people who purposely aimed the water in your eyes, ears and mouth. Oh well, its a small price to pay and next time I'll just have to buy some sunglasses for eye protection! One thing I will always remember was that on the first day I heard some guy say “How can we ever go back to normal life?” and I completely agree with him.
(Pictures will be uploaded soon)
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