Two weeks ago was the Songkran festival here in Thailand – or the Buddhist new year. It’s a pretty famous festival worldwide actually; know for its tradition of water throwing. Everything from a courteous sprinkle or polite splash to a well-aimed bucket helps participants articulate the good-natured festival fever. It's a practical and mostly welcome solution to the sweltering dry season heat.
Over three hot, sticky days locals see in the traditional Thai New Year, and the whole country is gripped by body-cooling, spirit-cleansing celebrations that involve paying respect to parents and elders, making merit, giving their homes a spring-clean, and still squeezing in time for partying! No point in Thailand having a holiday if you can’t have a party.
The great thing for me is that I had my friend Andrea visiting, so iI had someone to share the madness and mayhem of Bangkok Songkran. We went to Khao San Road, which had tens of thousands of young Thais out and about spraying water, drinking, wiping flour on people’s faces and generally running amok. It was like Rotto x 10 for them I think. The cool thing for me was there was no aggro – just lots of smiles and some very, very soggy clothes. Check out my pictures on this Facebook profile.
While Bangkok is fun, a lot of the main action for Songkran happens at Chang Mai, the northern city. Believe it or not I was there in 1990 when I was backpacking after working in Singapore. It was a lot of fun then and a lot of the parades and traditions are still there apparently. God I can’t believe that was 17 years ago.
As for Bangkok, apart from the water madness, it’s actually very quiet over this holiday period. That’s because there's a much deeper meaning to Songkran beyond getting drenched. Most Thais in fact head home to enjoy a break punctuated by religious ceremonies with their family. For them it's a time to express thanks to those they respect, loyalty to ancestors, an awareness of family and social responsibilities and their religious devotion - as well as get wet.
A period of transition, it's also a time for new beginnings. Songkran, derived from Sanskrit, means 'a move over' or 'change', and that’s exactly what Thais do. Everyone cleans everything out of their homes that is old and they want to throw away – which means heaps of junk on the street.
It was awesome fun – but after two days of getting drenched Andrea and I were taking cover from the continual frivolity. In fact a lot of critics in the press and politics grumble nowadays that Songkran is becoming too dominated by revelry that cares little for its meaning. Especially at partying epicentres like Khao San Road that we went to, where liquid-based festivities - water and alcohol - veer on the Bacchanalian, and a pretty crazy carnival atmosphere takes hold. Headlines splashed across front pages this year report new peaks of nationwide delinquency, with wildly drunk teenagers, motorcycle racing, gambling, water-throwing to insane extremes and, tragically, many fatal road accidents often marring the three days.
Still, I think the charms of the traditional survive, and it’s easy to see why. Despite the complaints of the wowsers, this is a peaceful and fun time – a mid-summer celebration of what it is to be Thai. I can’t imagine another city in the world where the spirit of the party – the fun, the respect and the laughter – would be maintained over 3 days without it turning into something else.
It’s an amazing time to be in Bangkok – if you ever make it here – try and come for Songkran.
No comments:
Post a Comment