The Thai New Year is celebrated by the 3 day Songkran Festival from April 13th to April 15th (although some cities hold the festivities a week before or after the official date). Traditionally, the festivities are supposed to be a low key affair. Friends and family pour small amounts of water and dab the face with a flower-water mixture as a token gesture to bring good luck, comradeship, and cleansing for the new year. It is a time to pay respect to elders and monks with food and gifts, as well as cleansing of one’s home with a “spring cleaning”.
While these traditions are still maintained, the modern festivities of Songkran have transformed into 3 chaotic days of brutal water fighting, partying, and mayhem. The traditional practice of pouring SMALL amounts of water and DABBING the face with a flower-water mixture has been taken way out of context. Every man, woman, and child in the country is armed with a water gun and/or a bucket of clay-like mix ready to douse the nearest person with water and smear their face or body. Anything that moves is an open target – people, cars, motorcycles, and animals alike get victimized.
Here, in the Silom district of Bangkok, masses of people are aimlessly meandering the streets dousing each other. There is music playing in the background to jam to and plenty of food stalls to stop by for a snack or drink. The street vendors sell all sorts of water guns ranging from Winnie the Pooh toy shooters to the more serious super soakers, as well as plenty of bottled water to replenish the spent ammunition.
More chaos in the Silom district.
A popular Songkran activity to do is to pack a bunch of friends with lots of water guns and buckets in the back of a pick-up truck and cruise the streets throwing water at everybody. These are the hard-core Songkran nut jobs to be wary of. They typically have a 55 gallon drum of water to share between them and have no shame slowing down or stopping in order to repeatedly throw buckets of water (sometimes with ice!) at unsuspecting targets.
I wouldn’t dare drive a motorcycle during this chaos. This poor KFC motorcycle delivery guy couldn’t escape getting sprayed.
More people on motorcycles getting sprayed. Unfortunately, this is where the dark side of the festivities comes into play. According to the Bangkok Post, the 2009 festivities produced 2,468 auto accidents resulting in 2,658 injuries and 220 deaths. Most were alcohol related, but some were directly caused by impairment due to water and/or clay mix thrown onto the vehicle or driver. I personally witnessed people throwing buckets of water at cars and motorcycles that were going at least 40 mph.
The white, clay-like mixture is covering this guy and his motorcycle. Man, I’d be pissed!
The popular motorized 3-wheel open air taxis known, as “tuk-tuks”, are a favorite target.
I decided to observe the festivities first hand, but of course I ended up getting soaked by passer-bys on the street along with this gang of revelers.
Getting my face painted by a random Thai person. The shirts we are wearing are the traditional festive Songkran shirts marked by their bright colors and flowery design.
All in all, the Songkran festival is not so unlike some of the Western Holidays in that the original meaning has been somewhat lost so that the holiday is used more as an excuse for commercialism and partying. The generally atmosphere is very festive. A lot of fun is to be had, and getting soaked during these scorching hot days isn’t too bad. So it’s goodbye to the year 2552, and hello to 2553 (based on Thai solar calendar, you can google it). Happy Songkran to Thailand, or as they say, “sa-wat-dee pee mai” (Happy New Year).
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