Thai New Year (Songkran)

We happened to be in Bangkok, Thailand from April 14 to April 16 – which also happened to be Thailand’s 2009 New Year, also known as Songkran. While in Koh Samui, we learned that traditionally at the New Year, icy scented water is poured onto elders’ hands, and some light water throwing and playful smearing of the face with non-staining white paint (chalk) follows between family members.

After Holi in India, I had heard from some other students about similar water festivals in Southeast Asia. I didn’t think any of the celebrations could be as crazy at Holi, but Thai New Year proved me wrong. Upon our arrival, the holiday seemed innocuous enough – lots of stores and restaurants closed and quiet streets. We figured this was also due to the protests going on in Bangkok (which we were able to completely avoid any encounter with) and the corresponding extension of the holiday and mandatory curfew.

However, the next day and night, we started to see some signs of the Thai New Year celebrations Bangkok-style:

Water play involves buckets of water which are thrown onto fellow celebrants from cars, as well as spraying with massive water guns (sold at every corner store) and water balloons. We saw legions of Thai teenagers in swimsuits milling around on motorbikes and in the back of pickup trucks, clearly cruising the town for opportunities to water play. Some street corners even had folks with streaming hoses, ready to spray.

We were also completely unprepared for this scene outside the tram station we arrived at, on our way to the night market:

It reminded me of Halloween night at the Castro in San Francisco (when that was still allowed). Thousands of Thai teenagers were out and about, spraying and dumping ice-cold water and painting faces. I am sure they were up all night long. There were also dozens of street vendors selling snacks, more white paint, and water guns. Grantland and I actually decided to turn around, return to the hotel, and change into swimsuits because we knew there was going to be no way that we would be able to avoid the celebrations that night. Sure enough, as soon as we got to street level, I just saw hands reaching out to both our faces:

There were also kids and some families out that night that we took the opportunity to snap some pictures with:

I peeked into some of the stores that were along the street of partying, and they were a complete and total mess – mud and people everywhere. But I bet business was pretty good that night.