Being English I am always amazed to see how the Thai people react to celebrating under the hot sun, fuelled with alcohol and throwing gallons of iced water at each other…they laugh, joke and Wai each other with respect…imagine thousands of young people in an English town on a hot bank holiday Monday (a contradiction in terms) full of whisky and throwing water at each other…how long would it be before the police had to break up the riot?
Being English (and sometimes proud of it) I am always amazed to see how the Thai people react to celebrating under the hot sun, fuelled with alcohol and throwing gallons of iced water at each other…they laugh, joke and Wai each other with respect…imagine thousands of young people in an English town on a hot bank holiday Monday (a contradiction in terms) full of whisky and throwing water at each other…how long would it be before the police had to break up the riot?

Songkran, the Thai New Year, starts off slowly in Pattaya on April 12th and lasts for a week before exploding in a blast of insanity and mayhem on April 19th, one of the last Songkran days in Thailand with most festivities having ended a few days earlier…well Pattaya is known as the extreme city!

Being a workaholic I arrive at my Jomtien office before 9am on this, the craziest of days.

On my way in I see a few early starters…local Thais throwing buckets of water over passing motorcyclists, other bikers swerving dramatically to the wrong side of the road to evade a drenching but almost feeling the force of my 2 ton pick-up truck. Good job I’m alert this morning!

I’m going to have a good breakfast at News Café before getting down to work. The next time I will leave my office “safely” will be when I decide to enter the procession of water-throwing traffic and venture home.

The last day of Songkran in Pattaya is like a giant mental asylum…with the lunatics in charge.

The traditional method of celebrating Songkran is to respectfully ask if you can dab some water on the forehead of another.

Pattaya on 19th April it resembles a war zone…of fun and laughter.

Once just a local celebration, Songkran is now a major occasion for the local expat and tourist.

While the Thais are happy to throw gallons of water over passing folk the expats and tourists come armed like Rambo with plastic water tanks strapped to their backs fuelling power water pistols, blasting away at anything and everything that moves.

It’s not a image for the faint-hearted…over-aged, over-weight foreigners stripped down to their swimming trunks, beer bellies and tattoos reliving their youth.

For the Thais, Songkran offers an acceptable way of letting-off steam, getting frustration out of their system and saying goodbye to the problems of the last year in an exhilarating manner. Everyone laughs. Everyone is happy. Most are getting (slowly) drunk!

© 2008, Robert D Watson

Footnote:

[Songkran road toll totals 368

The Road Safety Center Friday ended its road toll monitoring throughout the Songkran Festival's so-called "seven dangerous days" and concluded there was a total of 368 deaths and 4,803 injuries in 4, 243 accidents nationwide.

When compared to the same period last year, this year's figures were 31 less accidents, seven more deaths, and two less injuries, said Deputy Prime Minister Sahas Banditkul. Most accidents resulted from drunk driving at 40.56 per cent, involved motorcycles at some 82 per cent and took place during 4pm to 8pm at 32.24 per cent.

The Nation]