Songkran, Thailand, the Buddhist New Year, it takes place on the 12th-15th April in Thailand. One of the traditional Songkran customs is that you pour water into the hands of elders and visa verse as an act of cleansing or renewal … or something. Over time, it has evolved into enthusiastic "city-wide-water-fights" in every single village, town, and city throughout the country.
Saturday April 15th. It's 7pm.
The suns gone down and the streetlights have come on. I stand on the curb of Sichan Rd in my upbeat little town of Khon Kaen, in northeast Thailand. I'm in front of a shopping center, one of two in the town. It's the last day of Songkran, the Buddhist New Year, and I'm in the heart of the Songkran festivities.
I look around and I see... a world gone mad.
The street is PACKED with people - people yelling, people dancing, people smiling, people laughing. Grinning faces covered in flour, color dyed hair all foamed up with shampoo. EVERYONE is wet, completely soaked, head to toe. The curbside is lined with barrels of water, people drawing up water with their water pistols as quickly as possible. The ground is saturated; milky pools of floured water form everywhere on the road and people take great delight in stomping in them. Shops make a killing selling flour, beer and super soakers. One shop has set up 3 huge speakers behind me. It rocks the streets with the latest in Thai rock, pop and dance tunes, as well as some traditional isaan (northeast) music. Everyone sings insanely to every single note, dances to every single beat, as the party raves on. I'm in the middle of mayhem, joy, and the biggest celebration that I have ever been a part of.There is traffic - an endless procession crawling slowly along.... cars, buses, songthaews but mostly Utes. They are loaded up with barrels of water, and jammed with people hurling buckets of water and handfuls of flour out at the crowd. In return, each one that passes is first showered with buckets of water. Then guys jump on the back and wipe powder on the faces of girls and visa verse. The cuter they are, the more flour they get. You can tell when there is a Ute full of young pretty girls. A cheer rises up from the crowd and all the young men swarm at the Ute, hoping to powder the face of one of the beauties.
Empty Utes are also sat on by the crowd - they jump on the back, the roof, the bonnet and dance and yell along with the music; the Ute bounces so hard that the tires will burst. The drivers cannot go anywhere, and laugh while trying not to smack their heads against the roof. After 30 seconds, everybody jumps off and moves on, while the vehicle wobbles away. . . Buses heading to Bangkok inch slowly along, windows smeared with flour. People on the ground, who look like they want to jump out of the bus and join the chaos, wave up at the passengers inside. The driver opens his window when nobody is looking, fires his little water gun madly at an unsuspecting partygoer, then jams his window shut before he gets a face full of flour, grinning mischievously at his sneaky ambush.
A car has its wipers lifted up and its windscreen powdered all over. The driver stops and pulls out a camcorder, and films everything with a smile.
People draw love hearts and play naughts and crosses on the windscreen. When they finish, someone tosses water on the screen, puts the wipers back and the car slinks reluctantly away from the fun...and the people!!! Faces of unrestrained joy, everywhere!!! It is the one time of the year when social classes don't exist, when farmers, laborers and servants have running water fights with white collar professionals and businesspersons, then dance with them in the streets. Teenagers up with the latest fashion trends have dyed their hair in a myriad of colors for the festival and dress in the latest clubbing gear. A cop stands with infinite patience and good-natured ness while people come up and flour his face. His ammo belt is now useless - his gun is wrapped in plastic, but he wears a happy grin and vainly tries to direct traffic which really needs no directing.
Gatoeys - the famous transvestites of the Thai society are out at their outrageous best. This to them, is Mardi Gras. Middle-aged guys with beards wear tropical dresses and googly eyed glasses. They're impossibly huge breasts (made from water filled balloons - I checked) bouncing madly when they dance. They look ridiculously funny and the Thaïs love them, and dance with them at every opportunity. Kids run up behind them and toss bagfuls of flour into their butt cracks - both victim and attacker squeal in delight. Beautiful girls run up to us and powder our faces, ask us where were from and then run off giggling, wishing us good luck. They can't reach Trevor's face - he has to bend down for them. The girls are really really beautiful. Their hair is wet and tussled, and their wet clothes hug their figures - they are incredibly sexy. I've fallen in love so many times in the past hour that I've lost count. They conspire together and drag some unsuspecting young guy into their huddle and shampoo his hair, but I'm sure he loves it.
Young guys in their mid twenties cluster together and mosh to the music. They are shirtless, drunk and manic, but nobody cares. Occasionally they stagger into me. They turn around, drunkenly apologize and offer me a swig of their beer. I grin and oblige, and we start dancing together until the crowds separate us. There will be no fights, no trouble here. The madness has reached its boiling peak - you can feel the climax of energy charging the very air around you, but even now, I don't feel malice, I don't sense trouble, no impending riots, and no impending fights breaking out. The Thaïs know what they're here to do - party!! Violence and malice has no part in this celebration.
A Thai alternative rock song roars to life and starts shaking the streets. Trevor and I start our vigorous head thrashing, and play a really bad air guitar. We're both soaked and covered in powder. I've run out of flour and Trevor has broken his water pistol. So we've been dancing for the past hour. I look up and realize it's raining. I barely notice for all the water being thrown into the air and the clouds of flour that blur away the ends of the street. I wonder how long its been raining for. No one seems to have noticed. We have to go home soon, but I don't want to. I wish they could extend Songkran another week. I wonder if there is anything like this anywhere else in the world. Definitely not in Australia. I promise myself that I'll be back for this again some day. The street party rages on and on and on in this little street, in a small town in Thailand. It feels like the whole world is dancing with us. Suddenly I realize that I've never felt this alive. I wish I could have sent you some photos, but my camera would never have survived the experience. Sawadee bi mai - happy New Year friends.