Sunday 17 April 2011

SONGKRAMMM!

Since last time,
So last time I updated, we had been to the hectic city that was Bangkok and arrived in Phuket, however that was now nearly 3 weeks ago and since then the adventure has only continued.

After spending far too much time in Phuket riding out the worst of the weather, we finally took a flight to the North of Thailand to Chaing Mai, and what a time we picked to arrive here...even if when we arrived the hostel was shut and the only free room was a room with no electricity (bonus! - candle lit twin room ..aww romantic! but they gave us it for free!0

Songkram Festival - A Happy Thai New Year...
Now Thai people really know how to hold an amazing water fight! - notably the largest in the world, a 3 day festival throughout the whole country where people come together to celebrate a fresh start...What does this involve? - basically you buy a big water gun, walk out of your front door and unleash as much water as possible. Thousands of people line the streets battling people standing on the back of trucks going down ridiculously congested streets...i'm talking thousands - and the best place to see this and take part is of course in Chaing Mai...where we are! - Ranging from being covered in buckets of river water, to being doused in freezing cold ice water the Songkram experience goes down in mine and Adam's books as one of the best days of our travels for sure! -- The best bit in reflection was that we soon realised that amongst these thousands of people all having a good time...there was not a single police officer to be seen... Like back at home if you randomly threw a bucket of water over someone you would end up getting an ASBO, or a new shade of eye shadow for sure. Even in the name of celebrating in typical English fashion people still end up brawling over nothing...not in Thailand...if you squirt a random you are greeted with a big smile, a squirt back, a comment along the lines of "where are you from?" " Welcome to Thailand" "Happy new years," "Thank you for celebrating with us" or even offered to share a beer with them before continuing the carnage of the water fight... I can be quite cynical about how other countries do things, but I think for the first time during travels me and Adam have both agreed..."England could learn a lot by this," - which, is true,

Despite the craziness of the water fight, the whole festival has a lot of symbolism behind it, not only does it bring the family and the community together but the water represents a cleansing the spirit, wiping away all bad things from the previous year and creating a fresh start...I guess a bit like a rebirth...however it just has something a little more special about it than simply counting down the seconds to hear an over sized bell chime twelve times and waking up with a soar head from one too many gin cocktails ;-)



No comments:

Post a Comment