Water Festival!
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2005
1
21
38
Trip End
Apr 2007
Khon Kaen, Thailand
Friday, April 21, 2006
Except that it's the Thai New Year.
This is your third New Year in four months, after the Westerners and Chinese celebrated theirs. Today thousands of Thais will come home from Bangkok to celebrate with their families over the four days of celebration, so don't plan on getting a bus ticket to anywhere. And don't plan on staying dry...
Because it's also the water festival.
For four days, kids with water guns and truckloads of Thais will enthusiastically soak you to the bone as if you were on fire, which isn't far from the truth. You have placed all your money and your cell phone in plastic bags from your medical kit. You are tired, because you never get up this early. But there's some kids outside your door yelling, "BUY-ANN, Wake up! We have a surprise for you!" But you are not fooled. You rush to put on your bathing suit, then to the sink to fill a cooler of water, promising the kids, "Just a second, I have some snacks for you!". Emerging from your house, you take them head-on, soaking the ringleader, exhausting your water cooler. Like hyenas with Supersoakers, three of his henchmen surround you, and you realize you are utterly defeated. Mercilessly they fire upon you, and you laugh as you realize you're not sweating anymore.
Songkran is by far the most dangerous time to be on the roads in Thailand. Most of Thailand's car accidents take place in the next four days, and you are appreciating that fact as you hop on the back of a friend's pickup truck as he motors around the city of Khon Kaen, crawling through the streets in a massive parade/water fight.
Imagine being in the back of a pickup truck with ten other people on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, everyone armed to the teeth with water guns and baby powder. The baby powder is to keep you cool. The accepted strategy of Song Kran is to find a target who is either not yet wet/attractive/wearing a white shirt/a foreigner/going to shoot you, and then unload on them with water, finishing off by slapping them in the face with a handful of baby powder. Thais appreciate the opportunity to soak a foreigner about as much as you would nailing the ball sweeper at the driving range.
And this goes on for the entire day. By the end of it, your bathing suit is white from all the baby powder collected on it, your hands are shriveled and every part of your body is totally drenched and has been for hours. You are cold in Thailand for the first time you can remember, and it suddenly hits you that there is a practical and logical reason for adults to be squirting water and slapping each other in the face.
Disclaimer: Unlike you, I, Brian Kaderli, would never ride in the back of an open pickup, because that is against Peace Corps regulations. Shame on you.
Coming Very Very Soon: AIDS Training at the Nam Phong Army Barracks or Yes, Those 13-year Olds Are Negotiating Barbed Wire and Red Ants As Part of Our Activity.
