Water world

Songkran is a funny beast. The Thai new year festival is a celebration of cleansing and rebirth, marked by water throwing.

The tourism bureau would have you believe it is something adorable, like this.

But this is closer to reality.

People line the streets with buckets and hoses, armed with water guns. Every passerby is a target, especially the people actively trying to stay dry. It’s loads of fun — as long as you’re the person throwing water. When you’re not, it can be fairly miserable.

This tradition began with the cleansing of the Buddha statues, which are washed in honor of the new year. That water was then captured and used to bless elders and family members. The holiday has evolved into the world’s largest water fight, complete with wet T-shirt contests, shucking buckets of water into open vehicles and surprising strangers with a fistful of ice in the face.

There is no escaping this festival. I spent several hours yesterday tossing buckets at the unfortunate souls who tried to sneak past Hopf Coffee House in Chiang Mai. When I was done for the day, soggier than the last cornflake in a cereal bowl, I headed home on the back of a scooter. That’s when karma took a big chunk out of my ass, and I was stopped at a traffic light for what felt like hours. I was pelted from all sides with warm water, ice water, probably even a beer or two. I also had the pleasure of a garden hose down my pants.

This morning I snuck over to the ATM, where I got treated to a Super Soaker in the back while I was removing cash. As I was paying for a squirt gun and Diet Coke at the 7-11, the employee was packing his own heat — he shot me in the neck with warm moat water. During a coffee run, I was ambushed by a child hiding behind a potted plant. And I was cornered in a dark alley by 40 tiny kids with water balloons.

I seriously haven’t been dry for more than a few hours during the past three days.

While this is the biggest and most popular festival in Thailand, it’s also the most unpopular festival for my camera. I’ve been wrapping my poor little Lumix in plastic bags, sealed inside of Ziplocs, contained inside waterproof bags, and somehow my stuff is still getting wet. (I took a couple videos, but they don’t do Songkran justice.)

So sadly, I don’t have too many images to share. Instead I have to rely on the kindness of friends, like the good folks over at JDMesh, who took this awesome photo … while dumping a bucket of water on my head.

One of my favorite Songkran moments happened yesterday when some friends and I posed in the street for a seriously waterlogged photo. The guy snapping the picture was taking a long time, and we thought he couldn’t figure out the camera. Turns out he was waiting for the people across the street to run over with buckets. Sneak attack!