Songkran

"Songkran is the traditional thai new year. it marks the time when the sun passes from the zodiac sign of aries into that of taurus and is celebrated every year on april 13 or 14th. in fact, sangkran which once was not only the traditional but the official thai new year, spreads over three days from teh 13-15th, and this has always been a happy festival for one and all. in the north around chang mai, sand is taken into temple compounds in this time. it is believed that this will bring good health and prosperity, and that the more sand one takes into the compound the better. sangkran day begins with early morning merit making- offering food to monks, releasing caged birds into the air and fish into rivers and streams, and paying homage to one's ancestors. sangkran has always been associated with water, and respects are paid to elder relatives and friends by pouring scented water over the palms of their hands while uttering the wish of blessing. and besides these more reverential forms of paying respect, water is thrown rather less ceremonally by, and at, all and sun dry." - Thai ways by dennis segaller


we stepped on the bus in Nan city. a first clas bus that would be taking us on the six hour ride ending in chang mai. it was definately the nicest bus i have ever seen. complete with leather seats, a bus attendant, and chinese movies with thai dubbed over. zsila slept in the seat infront of me, of course while i watched the scenery slowly pass by. it might have been a first class bus, but it definately was not fast. there are no highways in northern thailand. we finally arrived in chang mai many bus stops later. every town we stopped in had people crowded on the streets holding their buckets of water. the entire way you would have thought it was raining- the whole six hours there were drops of water streaming down the windows of the bus. that is sangkran! we got off the bus and failed to realize that the national anthem was playing. after it came to our attention that we were the only people not standing erect i remembered how important that their national anthem was to them, oh well. people were pretty forgiving. we shook our heads at the tuk tuk drivers and started haggling with a thai man that spoke pretty good english. we agreed on 80 baht for the both of us and climbed in the back of a song tao (that means two row, it's a little truck with two rows in the back for people to sit on, it also has a cover). we had just started down the road, my back pack to my side when i felt a very cool splash of water all on my left. it had begun. i was already wet. we got to our hotel, a very nice four star hotel.

we only had a few days in chang mai and really did our best to make the most of it. that first night we just walked across the street to the night bazaar and just got a feel of what everything was like there. we woke up early the next morning to go ride elephants. they picked us up in a van and we made friends with a couple from holland (zsila called the guy Mr. Holland friend all day long). there were also a couple of nice girls from israel that we had fun talking to. we got to the elephant show a little late. but not late enough to miss the elephant football. it was hilarious. they had these giant soccor balls and they could hit those suckers far. some of them got fancy and were hitting them with their back legs. then they played basketball with their trunks and painted some pretty pictures of flowers with their trunks. after the show, they let us over to the platforms and we rode in ox carts through the village. and from there, we each got on our own elephant. it was a pretty long ride and it was hot! when we got down to the river, there was a very steep incline. the driver of our elephant was still sitting on its head, he leaned way back and held his hat as we slowly made our way down the river bank. zsila and i were sitting on the back of the elephant in this weird box seat with a bar to hold on to in front. it felt like we were going to fall out. when we got to the bottom of the river, he motioned for zsila to get on the head of the elephant as he hopped down. i was like great, this thing is going to run away with us. zsila was like are you sure and then just did it. our little thai guide started walking through the water in front of us and the elephant followed. he took some pictures for us and then motioned for zsila and i to switch places. not an easy task! crawling around on this giant head of an animal! there was nothing for me to hold on to so i just had to squeeze really hard with my legs on his head right behind his ears and brace myself with my hands. it was a long ride- i was sore for two days after that! we had a couple more steep inclines. yea, that was a little scary. we made our way back to the other side and crossed the river again. we dismounted the elephants and went and had a great thai buffet lunch, sitting with our new found israeli friends. from there, we took a long raft ride with the raft guides playing sangkran all along. throwing each other into the elephant dung ridden river. it was a good time.

we spent the night in chang mai at the night bazaar. there was so much to see. we finally had to just split up. one night i was in a little shop run by a bunch of pakistani men. they were all up towards the front lounging around eating dinner. i spent a lot of time there b/c i bought so many things. i was trying to tell them that i didn't have any money b/c i was a student (all the vendors think that b/c i'm american, i'm rich). i showed them in baht how much i owe to the bank for my school. and they were like law school? i said no, med school. all of the sudden their tone changed and they pointed to a guy lounging on the ground and said he has headaches, bad headaches, can you help him? what was i supposed to do? so i started asking him all of the questions, nope not a migraine, not a cluster headache.. he just had a tension headache. i probed a little further and it turns out he is just a very stressful person. i told him he needed to go down the street and get a massage (in fact, that's probably where zsila was right as i was saying that). they were like advil what's that? one of them went to the back and came back with a milllion plastic baggies and threw them on the floor. pretty soon, this little blonde girl, me, and a bunch of pakistanis were huddled on the floor sifting through every kind of prescription medicine you can think of. benzodiazepines. they got it. antibiotics they had it. i was like no, you just need ibuprofen. it was funny. i made friends. with a bunch of pakistanis. then i went on my way to shop some more and meet more fun people. for such a big city, it's amazing how safe you felt walking around by yourself late at night. there were just so many people around and everyone was walkign around smiling, in great moods.

the next day we visited all the handicraft places. we basically had our personal driver the whole day long. he was so sweet. we saw umbrellas, silver, wood, silk, it's like we stepped back three centuries. it was very interesting. it cost more to ship things home than to buy them. that was the problem. in fact, i have a big problem sitting in my room right now. and it's solid wood, i don't know how i'm goign to get that thing home. i bought it at the night bazaar. and by the time they had it all bubbled wrapped up, it looked like a giant boomerang รห รห หน ดีใ ร กนืงะ นไ ไฟ รงท ไพระรืเ woops, this stupid keyboard just switched to thai, anyways, i pointed at my giant boomerang and i was like look a boomerang. somehow all the thai vendors knew what i was talkign about. and they were laughing their heads off! the next night, i was passing by their shop and they asked me how i was doing. i was like i still don't know how i'm going to get that boomerang home. i remember being in one shop during the day and these really fat old irish men and their friends were walkign by in the street like they were having their own parade. they were soaking wet from head to toe, just dripping and singign some crazy national song, just as crazy as can be. zsila and i had actually been together shopping at that time. we were both half wet from various strangers doing their best to soak us. zsila went on ahead. she was looking for a particular shirt. not long after that, i see zsila off in the distance walking down the sidewalk towards me. i couldn't stop laughing. she could not have been wetter if she was swimming in a pool with her clothes on. she was absolutely drenched! water just dripping from her face and her hair. apparently, she had run into some americans not far up ahead that had decided she was definately entirely too dry. what an insane holiday! mom, this is definately the holiday for you. this would be your absolute dream holiday i hope you get to see it in person some day. it's so perfect, it couldn't be hotter and then some nice stranger pours freezing cold water down your back and cools you down. even the nice old ladies come up to you with their bucket of flower water pour it on you and mutter something in thai. there's no age limit to "playing sangkran" as they say.

oh i forgot to say- when we got back from riding elephants that day, as soon as we pull up from our hotel, everyone in our van knew we were about to get it. of course, the hotel we stay at during sangkran has a fountain in front of it. everyone was posted up in front of our hotel using the fountain as their arsenal. there was no way out. we were wet before we got halfway out of the van. of course, they got us! we were the dryest thing around but not for long.