The Water Festival, Thai style

 
 
There are days when my life is just so ridiculously fun, yesterday was one of them. I joined the revelry of celebrating Thai New Year, Songkren, the Water Festival. Marking the beginning of the rainy season,(not a drop so far) the entire country breaks out water cannons, buckets and anything that will deploy water. Armed with my waterproof phone bag and a huge water gun i jumped on the motorbike to head to town. No sooner than i turned on the main drag i was drenched by a group manning a large water reservoir. This continued the ten miles to Chalong. The streets were lined with people, water guns, huge reservoirs of water. i even saw fire trucks filling these containers.

 
 
i joined my friends at Au Chalong and spent the entire day drenching passersby and getting drenched and laughing until it hurt! the original intent of the water was to show respect for elders by pouring scented water on them, and a semblance of that remains, but mostly just good “clean” fun. http://www.phuket.com/festival/songkran.htm and http://www.rawaimuaythai.com/sonkran-festival.htm tell the story.

 
 
 
 
so again i am in a culture i adore, the customs and traditions fit me to a tea. The Thai have taken s sacred festival kept its roots and made it so much fun. I love the Land of Smiles.

1 thought on “The Water Festival, Thai style”

  1. SUBJECT: Hello

    Brian
    We have been following your web site for a couple of years and and would like to meet you sometime.

    We are working in Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and make regular trips to the Pengerang coast across from Singapore. We work in the oil and gas industry and we are in Malaysia working on a Petronas project.

    We are planning to buy a boat when we retire in a few years and enjoy the cruising life style. We enjoy your blog and would love to meet you and have dinner if possible whenever you are close to Singapore or Johor Baru.

    The Selene is one of our favorite trawlers and is high on our list of favorite boats. We also like the Grand Banks, Grand Alaskan, and the Nordhavn. All are good boats and we will buy one at the right time.

    Let us know when you are in the area and if you have time to meet up. We would love to buy you lunch (or dinner) and hear first hand about your adventures.

    Take care

    Dave & Diane

    Sent from my iPad

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