4/15 Songkran

4/15/2013: Songkran festivities ended up being much more extreme than I had expected. While biking into the old city for lunch on Friday, I'd been splashed a little by people along the road, but it was pretty minimal and I assumed that's how the rest of Songkran would be. On Saturday, I first rode my bike into the old city to visit Wat Phra Singh (the most visited temple in Chiang Mai) and happened upon a big Songkran celebration where they were removing a buddha from a temple and putting it on a float. It was pretty entertaining - the guys that were struggling to move the heavy buddha also had to deal with a constant barrage of water being thrown at them. An interesting part of the water throwing that I wasn't aware of is that people like to collect the water that has run off of the buddha and then pour it on their heads. In parades I saw, most floats that had buddha statues on them had a guy on the float who was there specifically to collect water and then distribute it to people along the parade route.

 After the temple, I wanted to go to Waroro's market, on the east side of town, so I hopped on my bike but it quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to make it to the market, nor would it even be open since it appeared that everyone in Chiang Mai was hanging out around the moat splashing each other. It's difficult to accurately describe the scene, and it was difficult to take pictures without getting my camera wet.

Basically, tons of people drive around in their flatbed trucks with about 8 people in the bed, along with a large tank of water (sometimes with ice in it), and everyone has waterguns and buckets for splashing people. So the trucks drive around the moat (which defines the old city). Everyone else walks along the moat and scoops up water from the moat and splashes the trucks, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, etc. that go by. They splash each other too. Really no one is spared. You could be wearing a 3-piece suit or a wedding dress and I think you would still get soaked. There apparently are rules about Songkran that the government released, which I haven't read but I assume is meant to specify who is game for a splashing and who isn't. From my experience, it was mostly indiscriminate. There were some polite children who would wave their arm in the standard way that I assume means "can I splash you?" and, if I was biking, I'd ring my bell and let them douse me. Like I said before, sometimes people put ice in their water, which made it really unpleasant to be splashed. It's still 100 degrees here, though, so the splashing was actually usually pretty nice. I gave up on going to the market and decided I'd just bike around the moat and be an easy target for everyone. I could tell that Thai children value splashing "farangs" (foreigners) more than others, mostly from the look of disappointment on their faces when I'd bike by and they were in the middle of filling up their water guns and didn't have a chance to get me. Anyway, the scene is incredible. So many people along the moat, still tons of street vendors that are actually exempt from splashing, and the main road all the way around the moat is jam-packed with pickup trucks that are pretty much parked, and motorcyclists weaving in-between the trucks. Some trucks were blasting music, which turned it into a bigger party. Some other trucks just carried guys with big drums and sometimes a little whiny flute, which was also awesome. I learned that foreigners are bigger jerks when it comes to splashing. Thais will typically go for your chest or stomach, and often they would just dip their hands in the buckets and just do a small "spatter." Foreigners were merciless, and aimed for the ears and sometimes, with squirt guns, tried to get under my sunglasses to get me in the eyes. "It's all in good fun though." At some point I gave up on riding my bike, parked it on a random side street, and walked around some. I ended up near Thapae Gate and happened upon another parade, so I grabbed a chair outside a bar and drank some beers and watched the parade, which consisted of a lot of floats with buddhas, women doing traditional dances, and ladyboys. Lots of ladyboys.

Refilling from the moat

On Sunday, after biking around for a while and getting thoroughly soaked, I went back to my apartment and just watched the scene from the 5th floor patio, which overlooks the south side of the moat. It was really entertaining. There was one guy who was set up at a little shop at the foot of my building who was really merciless and I was cracking up watching him methodically march out into the street and dump water on passersby even if they were gesturing that they didn't want to get splashed. I decided to take the one bowl I own and go down to see if I could join him. There were actually a handful of Thai guys hanging out at the front of this shop just getting drunk and splashing people. I ordered a large Chang beer from the lady that was actually working, and then pointed with my empty bowl to the large tank of ice water they had. They all emphatically nodded and encouraged me to go douse people. They didn't speak much English, so there wasn't much talking, but there were lots of "cheers-ing" and dousing. They offered me some odd snack, which I tried, and it turned out to be delicious. It was like a sour gummy worm, but actually I think it was a tamarind (a type of fruit). It had seeds in it, which surprised me, but I spat them out which for some reason really amused one guy who almost fell over laughing. He was pretty hammered and I'm guessing just finds foreigners funny in general. There was a little kid there too, who kept splashing me. One guy said his name was "Sam" or something like that, and said his kid's name was "Ud"….like "Ud-quake" and then pantomimed an earthquake. It was a good time - definitely more fun being a splasher than a victim. They told me to come back at 1pm the next day. I was getting ready for my trip, so I only stopped by for a bit, but managed to get a few splashes in. They were using ice water, though, so I feel guilty about that.

All in all, Songkran started on Friday, and was still going strong Monday afternoon when I stupidly took a tuk-tuk to the train station for my trip to Malaysia. Tuk-tuks don't offer much protection from splashing, so I was thoroughly drenched when I arrived at the train station. Even in Bangkok, when I paid for my next train ticket, all of my cash was still wet.

Passing through random towns by train on Tuesday, I could tell that Songkran was still going strong.