happy songkran, or sawadee pii mai!

thai new year (celebrated this year from april 13-17) is madness in chiang mai. traditionally known as a water-pouring festival, songkran has turned into more of a water-throwing "fight" of sorts. not a mean-spirited fight of course, but pretty intense nonetheless. we don't have tons of pics of actual songkran celebrations, mostly because chris already lost one camera to water this thailand trip and we didn't want to risk losing another.

the actual new year was celebrated on april 13th. at 8 am, dance mixes of popular (American R&B/hip-hop) songs started blaring from loudspeakers conveniently positioned across the street from our apt into our windows. it was like having a dance party in my room all day (from 8 am-7 pm). people began flooding the streets around 10ish. there are two groups of people who go out to celebrate songkran, people who walk and people who sit in the bed of a pickup truck. there are also other groups (like people who stand on the sidewalk/edge of the road with hoses and buckets waiting for you to drive by). chris and i have been both at different points of our songkran experience. i will share with you the finer points of either here:

1) People who walk. If you're going to an area where there is hardcore Songkran celebrations going on, you'll likely get wet, especially if you walk along the side of the road where trucks are going by (usually at like 1 mph). Getting wet while walking is not so bad because people generally (unless you are in the moat area) don't dump TONS of water on you. People who walk usually carry water guns (ie small amounts of water) and are not dangerous to you (unless totally wasted, which is not uncommon.)

2) People in pickup trucks. It is fun to sit in the back of a pickup truck if you have adequate water-throwing materials (a huge 32+ gallon trash can filled with water, buckets, etc). We had kinda wussy water-throwing paraphernalia (really small bowls, a small basin used for laundry to hold water) when we went out to Mae Tang yesterday, but it was fun anyway. What happens when you are in a pick-up truck is you get water thrown on you by other passing pick-up trucks and also by little kids (and adults) who line the sides of the road/freeway/whatever, and dump water on you (some of it ice water). We are not talking about small amounts of water here, people. Gig, Aum, Chris, and I got drenched at least 20 times (but mostly Chris and Gig). Sometimes the water is not the cleanest (as people collect it from wherever they can, including ditches, etc.) and Chris is currently on a course of cipro s/p getting some river water in his mouth.

Other times you may be targeted by water-pourers/throwers is when you are riding around on your motorcycle. You cannot avoid this, even if you do not ride in the lane closest to the sidewalk. Chris and I thought we were being smart by riding in the other lane, but learned our lesson when we got totally dumped on by a passing pick-up truck. Lesson for Songkran: Accept that you're going to get wet, be good-natured about it, and bring a change of clothes if you're going anywhere where you care about being dry.

one of the oldest temples in Chiang Mai. During Thai New Year (this also happens in Laos), one ritual that many people participate in is the washing of Buddha images. Gig washes (ie pours holy water) on the Buddha in front of Wat Phra Singh every year and invited us to go along (so we did, on Friday afternoon-eveningish). in the north, there's also a tradition where you build 'sand' pagodas. in the old days, people would bring a bucket of sand to the temple to and dump it on the temple grounds. This would help keep the temple dry when the rainy season (next month) came. Nowadays you can just 'buy' a bucket of sand for a donation at the temple and pour it (and place a banner/flag of sorts in it) in a designated area. for some reason, we got sidetracked after pouring the water over the Buddha and didn't pour sand. we did, however, put tons of satang (coins) in alms bowls placed in front of the eight Buddhas (for the days of the week - see mae hong son posts for more explanation.)

other chiang mai songkran highlights included a long-awaited barbecue at maddie and north's place (great homemade potato salad by maddie, pork, shrimp, thai seafood sauce (also homemade by maddie), beef kebabs, and a little too much beer for tanya) & pancakes (and my fave, durian) at joanne and ben's place. we've also had more than our fill of ice cream at the (somewhat) newly opened Bud's Ice Cream of San Francisco in Nimman Promenade. next post - phuket! (where we are now)