Songkran Festival

Little did we know that we booked our trip right at the beginning of the Songkran Festival, the traditional Thai New Year (my Third New Years Celebration this year!!) Here the elders usually spend this time with relatives, doing good deeds, and spring cleaning their houses. It is also the time to show respect to their parents as people go home and spend time with their families.

Songkran's international fame comes from the children (and the non-natives) dousing everybody with water as they drive or walk by. But it doesn't stop there, we saw several trucks on the streets of Pattaya with water tanks and a load of kids. They would pull up by the curb and just pour buckets of water on people. Whether they wanted it or not. If you ventured on to the streets you were likely to get wet.






Sidewalk shooters getting the truck in front



I remember one such instance where a girl all done up in makeup and nice clothes was walking into a mall, she didn't quite make it all the way in as a truck pulled up and soaked everybody on the steps, her included.

What helps this out is the taxis there (songthaew) are basically pickup trucks with a cage around the bed. They weren't the best modes of transportation, but for the US equilvalent of 40 cents you could pretty much go anywhere in downtown Pattaya. A dollar would take you up to 10 kilometers.






In the Taxis we were pretty much sitting ducks, especially at stop lights.



It was fun the day we went to the beach and were already pretty wet, so we didnt mind it. We even got into the act by throwing what little water we had left over at just anybody on the streets. But at night when we went out for dinner, it got a little annoying as we tried to stay dry until we ate.....no such luck.....Happy Thai New Year!