Songkran

This past week was Songkran. It's the Thai New Year's festival, and it's one of the only national holidays that almost EVERYONE gets off. It's also celebrated in a strange way -- a HUGE COUNTRY WIDE WATERFIGHT. For at least 3 days during the week (this year, it was from wednesday to friday), everyone grabs their water guns, and sets up buckets with hoses and dumps water on everyone else. Everyone who's not standing on the side of the road is in the pack of a pickup truck, ready for the fight with huge tubs of water, guns and jasmine powder. You may think that I am exaggerating. I'm not.
Colleen and I took a walk down to the market on Thursday, and we ended up joining a family who had a bucket set up outside of their business. It was so neat to play with them, and have the little girls giggle when Colleen and I poured water on their heads. We splashed everyone - Colleen and I would stand in the center of the road with our water guns and spray the people on the non-aircon busses through the windows. HILARIOUS. It was a fun way to start Songkran for me - I missed the festivities last year, and this was a great way to ease into it.

On Friday, our Pastor invited us to come on the pickup truck he was renting. There ended up being 9 of us on the back of this really old rickety truck, driving around splashing and getting splashed. It was hilarious. It took us 20 minutes to empty the first round of water, and then our driving took us back to the river to fill up. (for those of you who don't know the river, it's DISTGUSTING) But, the water was free, and we couldn't argue with the driver, so we filled up and were on our way again. Pretty soon, we were slowing down to stop to splash a group, and the guys onthe side of the road started pointing and shouting, and we looked down, only to see that our wheel was rolling away and we had broked our back axel!!!! We all jumped out, and the thai guys started dumping water on our now smoking pickup. They decided that the truck being in the center of the road was a bad idea, so they all tried to come and lift it up. Problem: we just filled up with water! SO, there went out water, and once the truck was empty, they stopped a bunch of motorcyclists and asked them to help get our truck out of the way. It's a hilarious thing to see 35 Thai guys picking up the back end of a truck and rolling it off the center of the road.
We waited an hour for a new truck, but finally one appeared, and we filled up with water yet again and proceeded to be driven to one of the main party streets in our area. It was completely nuts and totally hilarious! Music playing, people dancing, and almost everyone is drinking. There were so many people crammed onto the street and into trucks and on motorbikes that it took us almost 2 hours to go 3 or 4 blocks. Fortunately or unfortunately, we were the ONLY white foreigners in the area, so all of the crazy drunk dancing splashing Thai people paid special attention to us. We were so wet, and covered with Jasmine powder by the end, it was crazy. But it was a good time.

Songkran is one of those things that sounds like a joke, but it's not. I sit here and wonder - 'how is it possible that I never heard about this??'. I have no idea how this crazy, silly event has escaped the notice of us North Americans. Consider yourself lucky. You are no longer in the dark :)