GET WET

If you ever get a chance to visit Thailand during the New year, it is a trip - but do think about whether you want to get anything done whatsoever before you decide to go.

The Songkran festival is apparently like 4 or 5 days long - I guess it started Saturday, and I think tomorrow is the last day, so that would be four days this year, at any rate. It's the New Year. It's chief characteristics seem to be closed government offices, chalk drawing on faces, and water. Lots and lots and LOTS of water. It is essentially a national waterfight, and if the major center for the celebration is in Chaing Mai, I can't even imagine what it must be like up there, because Bangkok is more than a little damp.

I heard about the water festival from the people in Phuket, and they described it as something that kids do all day, and drunken tourists embrace in the evening, and so I knew that I would get wet and the like. I pictured people with squirtguns shooting one another, maybe some water balloons? I didn't really know.

Oh, no. Maybe kids/backpackers is how they roll in Pattong, but here in Bangkok, everyone is throwing water. Little old ladies have super soakers in their hands, with the full reservoirs strapped to thier backs. There are some food stalls out, but nearly every other street vendor in the city has put away their normal wars, and for now the only things being bought or sold on Khao San Road are water and things to use to hurl that water at others. And there is no such thing as an innocent bystander, as everyone is fair game - walking though the market, you can (and will) get a bucket of ice water poured down your back. Currently, after a brief walk around town, I look as if I went swimming while fully clothed. I had to wring out before I could sit at the computer.

There are dunk stations - kids with huge water barrels to fill their bowls and buckets and guns, and they pelt everyone who walks by. There are masses of guys in the back of open pickups who all have squirt guns, and they spray you from within traffic. People spray cars, they get you as you are going in doors, they pour water on you as you walk away. It's all good natured, but there is no way to be safe. Well, unless you are the uniformed police. They seemed pretty dry.

There is also this chalk stuff, which I don't get. They look like Hershey's kisses, and some people draw on their faces, and others mix it with the water and smear it on people as they pass by. Some seem to throw it, this chalk water, but that is apparently generally reserved for serious mutual waterfighters and for cars - no one has thrown the chalk water on me, but I have gotten smeared with it more than once.


What's hilarious to me is that no one can explain why. It's tradition, but there is apparently no reason for the water or the chalk that anyone knows. Just that it's hot here in April, and I gotta say - before too long, you begin to appreciate the ice water, and feel like the people spraying warm water are just being stingy. Today was the first time I've gone for an hour's walk in Thailand and not been hot, too. So while a high-powered soaker at close range can hurt your neck, and while I still don't like the smearing with the chalk (call me a prudish Westerner if you will, but there is something unnerving about strange men walking up to you on the street and touching your face. I can do water fine, but hands off, eh?) overall, it's a pretty fun festival.