Despite them having New Year’s Eve partying on January 31st, the true celebrations - the ones where they really let go - are still saved for the old New Year. Called Songkran, the festival lasts anything up to five days, or even longer, although it’s official dates are April 13th to 15th.
As Thailand geared up for the celebrations I was told that the place where the festival is most ardently celebrated is Chiang Mai, Thailand’s big city in the north – it’s Manchester if you will. And so I decide that that’s where I want to be that weekend and go about planning my trip.
But it nearly doesn’t happen. As soon as I book the time off work, Binnie tells me to book everything ASAP as everyone heads home, or up to Chiang Mai, or down to Bangkok at that time, and everything gets booked up really quickly. So I scour the guidebook and decide on a guesthouse to stay at. I pick a place called Smile House, mainly cos it gets a good review, but also because it was once the ‘safe house’ of an infamous opium warlord called Khun Sa during his visits to Chiang Mai.
Khun Sa, now 73 and retired in Myanmar (Burma), was a scary-sounding dude who, up until the mid-90s, controlled the opium trade generated in the ‘Golden Triangle’ – an opium-producing area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet – with a 20,000-strong army. He was constantly fighting the Burmese, and trying to claim independence for the Shan area of Myanmar, where he lived. And in 1990 he was indicted by a U.S. court on charges of heroin trafficking in the United States. Though he surrendered to the Burmese in 1996, they, weirdly, refused to extradite him, and he now lives comfortably in the Rangoon area of the country. I can only assume he’s paying the Burmese to keep him safe from punishment in the US. Amazing.
But anyway. I book my room for the weekend. Sorted. And then completely forget to sort out travel. By the time I remember – Binnie asks me a few weeks before if I’ve booked my train ticket yet and her eyes widen in horror when I tell her no – it’s too late to get a train. Binnie suggested this would be the best way to get to Chiang Mai as the traffic’s really bad over Songkran and there are a lot of accidents on the road. But when I head down to the train station to try my luck, Every. Single. Seat. In the few days leading up to Songkran is booked. There’s nothing free at all. I start to panic. I’m really keen to get out of Bangkok for a bit and do somewhere else, as well as celebrate Songkran in the best place for it.
A member of staff at the train station saves me. She asks what the problem is and I tell her. She tells me her daughter works at a travel agent upstairs and might be able to help me out with a bus seat. I gratefully follow her up there. After being laughed at at travel agents on Khao San and laughed at by the guy downstairs at the train station, I’m surprised by a more positive response here. A lady phones up to check availability and supplies me with a bus seat. I’m so grateful that I just take it, no arguing about the price. She looks at me when she says 1100 baht, as if anticipating some bartering. She gets none. I don’t care. I just want to get there. But she even apologetically explains that the price is normally cheaper, but because it’s Songkran…etc etc. Basically Songkran has the same effect on the country here as Christmas does on the UK – insanely busy transport system, everyone on the move, transport more expensive, etc etc.
But I’m happy. I have somewhere to stay and a ticket to get there. Bring on the water fights!
My excitement about Songkran comes mainly from the fact that the celebrations are marked by everyone chucking water over or at each other for the duration - the little boy in me is relishing the idea of an excuse to behave in such a manner at the age of 29. Like much of Thai culture, it’s a seemingly contradictory way of celebrating. These devout Buddhists not only take the time to ‘make merit’ (bring good karma) by pouring scented water on Buddha images and paying respect to their elders, they also go all out in what must be the biggest water fight to take place on the planet… ever!
The water fight aspect originates from the New Year tradition of pouring a small amount of lustral (cleansing) water on other people’s hands as a sign of respect. New Year in Thailand, like the rest of the world, is seen as a time for cleansing, renewal and starting anew. But this gentle practice was given a new spin by the Thai youth and now a bucket of water over your head is more common.
When April 12th arrives I skip off work early and head home to pack. Last minute job as always. As I’m packing Binnie calls me to wish me a Happy Songkran and tell me that I can call her if I need any help with speaking to Thai people. I thank her gratefully; she really is very good to me.
I get a cab to Hualamphong station, where I’m meeting the travel agent who’ll take me to the bus, and find myself there ridiculously early, which is better than ridiculously late of course. So I just take the time to relax a bit and watch the hecticness going on around me. The station is overwhelmingly busy, just like a London station in the week leading up to Christmas.
At one point a load of police officers line up alongside the waiting area and I think there’s going to be another rendition of the national anthem. But it’s too early for that (it’s usually at six) and instead I see a procession of protestors with banners and megaphones marching through the station. I have no idea what they’re protesting about, but they move through peaceably and they’re gone as quickly as they arrived.
There’s a big screen on the right-hand side wall of the station which is showing news coverage of Songkran. The traffic is already bad, and already the water fights seem to have started around the country. I start to get excited.
I scoff some KFC and then some German sausage, which is covered in chili sauce and makes my mouth burn for a good 10 minutes after. I get bored and go and have a look in the book shop. I pick up a map of Chiang Mai and at the same time find a good map of the bus routes in Bangkok. Maybe now I can conquer the buses!
I go and sit by the travel office where I bought my ticket and listen to my iPod. A Thai dude comes over and sits next to me and starts chatting, asking if I’m going to Chiang Mai etc, no introductions. I wonder if he’s the bus driver and ask him. He says he is. So typical of a Thai to just start chatting and not tell you who they are.
A short while later two European-looking girls come over to the benches and sit down nearby. Thai dude does exactly the same to them as he did to me. But they’re obviously not used to Thai people – they have that shell-shocked look of a new arrival – and eye him suspiciously.
Eventually Thai dude gathers the three of us and takes us to a taxi. Turns out he’s not the bus driver, but a driver who will take us to the bus. The two girls look worried. I raise my eyebrows and smile at one of them in what I hope is a reassuring way. It doesn’t seem to work. Nonetheless, they get in and off we go.
The Thai dude takes us to another tour office where a load of those big brightly-coloured coaches are waiting to take people up to Chiang Mai. He dumps us outside the office where we huddle underneath an awning to escape the spitting rain. Yep, at the time of year it’s supposed to be the hottest (another reason Songkran has escalated into one big water fight) monsoon season has decided to come early.
We’re ‘checked in’ by a young Thai woman. The two girls are nervous about handing their tickets over; I tell them it’s okay. We chat a bit. Both called Johanna, they’re from Poland and have literally just flown in from Warsaw (hence the shell-shocked look) and are going straight up to Chiang Mai. That’s a whole lot of travelling, I tell them. They nod wearily.
I tell them a bit about the ‘relaxed’ Thai transport system and that it may take a while but they always seem to get you there. They tell me they’re worried about getting ripped off, or having something stolen. I tell them half the time you don’t know you’re being ripped off, and as for something being stolen, don’t worry, just be wary. I’m not sure I’m qualified to advise newbies but they seem to think my three months here means I’ll have all the answers!
We get on the bus – I watch the girls reluctantly give up their bags to be stashed in the hold – and I try and find my seat on the top deck. There’s no bloody numbers or anything, but the Thai lady looks at my ticket and points out my seat down near the front. How she knew I’ll never know. The Polish girls sit opposite me and we chat a bit more. I ask about Warsaw, whether they like it, is it worth visiting? One of them tells me it’s nice but is still in the process of building itself up to be a city that can rival other European cities. It needs more work, she says.
They’re obviously tired and I, quite unsociably, am dying to listen to my new Enter Shikari album over and over again and so the conversation dies and I settle into my own little world.
I spend the first couple of hours of the journey just watching the traffic. Sounds boring, I know, but you’ve not seen Thais driving. They’re fucking crazy. Watching the near misses and waiting for the inevitable car crash that never comes is almost as tense as seeing a good thriller. And the hard shoulder, it seems, is as good a place as any to get where you want to go. There were as many cars queuing there as there was on the other lanes.
I dip into Gone For Good, by Harlan Coben, the thriller Jess lent me. It’s so trashy but I get quite into it. It’s easy reading. Eventually I fall asleep.
April 13
I wake up just as the bus crashes. My body jolts as metal hits metal and I stare out of my bleary eyes to see what’s happened.
Our coach has tapped a truck in front on the behind. The Thai passengers let out a quite funny, ‘Ooh’. I imagine their reaction would be much the same if we’d rolled into a ditch and the bus was on flames. But all seems fine and we move on quickly. There’s none of the shouting or delay you’d get if the same happened in the UK. Love it.
We arrive in Chiang Mai just gone eight. It’s a bright, sunny day and I have an exciting weekend ahead of me, which manages to lift me out of grumpy morning Will persona. As soon as we get of the bus, of course, everyone is hassled by Thai drivers wanting to take us to our guesthouses. I tell a sawngthaew driver where I’m staying and he says he’ll take me. He speaks to the Polish girls as well. They don’t want to go with him because they’re supposed to be picked up by a driver from their guesthouse. The man shows them a card from their guesthouse to reassure them. They insist they’re not paying any money, they’re supposed to get a free lift. The man sighs and agrees to take them for free. We all pile in.
We drive through Chiang Mai, which seems really nice. It’s not a city per se – there are no high rise buildings, nothing over three storeys, in fact - and so it feels more like a large town than a city. We stop along a small side street and the driver tells me we’re at Smile. I get out and he tells me I have to pay 20 baht. That’s no biggie, what a bargain, I think, and pay him happily. I bid the Polish girls farewell and wish them luck. I really don’t think they have any idea what they’re letting themselves in for this weekend.
I go and see if I can check-in but the room’s not ready. I’m way too early. I put my bag in the store cupboard and have a look around the reception area. It opens up into what’s basically a large, airy living room, with a big TV and a fridge with Coke and beer. It leads out to a small pool with some strangely unappealing green water in it. I’m ravenous so head off for some breakfast.
I don’t go far, it’s too risky. I don’t want to get wet yet. So I eat at the restaurant next door and have a dodgy English breakfast - soggy scrambled eggs, dry fried potatoes, you know the sort. Not good.
I go back to the guesthouse and my room’s still not ready. I’m too tired to wander around so crash on one of the sofas and read Gone for Good, dozing a bit as well. Before I sit down a small child says hello. The child introduces himself as Jack. At least I think he’s a boy. He asks where I’m from and we have a bit of a chat. He must be about nine, I reckon, but seems very precocious, albeit in an entertaining way. He tells me he’s from New Zealand and is staying here indefinitely with his mum. They’ve been here a month but doesn’t miss NZ. He’s not sure why they chose to come to Thailand.
I notice he’s wearing a skirt. I wonder if he’s the child of a liberated mum, or Jack is in actual fact a girl. She asks why I’m wearing a Batman t-shirt. I tell her cos Batman’s cool. She screws up her nose. I’m being derided by a nine year old; definitely a girl. She then queries weather my shark tooth necklace is real. I tell her it said it was real on the label and it feels like enamel if you bite it. She’s not convinced. I shrug at her. She’s bloody hilarious.
She seems to have the run of the place, but then that’s the feeling this place seems to be trying to generate – a home away from home – and on the most part they succeed.
I eventually check-in. Room nice enough, big bed – with springs!! Woo! I shower and don t-shirt and shorts. I wrap my camera and phone in a plastic bag and head out to meet Vicky. We’ve arranged to meet at Pratu Chiang Mai, an exit over the moat at the south of the city.
Some quick orientation: the centre of Chiang Mai is surrounded by a square moat around which most of the Songkran revellers gather to collect water to chuck. Smile House is in the southeast corner of this central square, giving me good access to everywhere. Pratu Chiang Mai is a short walk from Smile so I think I’ll find Vicky no probs. Little do I know there’s lots of bridges over the moat, and the gates are marked by tall orange brick walls. I just head to the nearest bridge and wait.
As soon as I hit the street I’m hit with water by a grinning Thai with a bucket. Within minutes I’m soaked to the skin. I head to the nearest stall selling water pistols and pick out a massive mother of a gun with five nozzles that spray water in different directions. It costs me 500 baht but I’m not going to get much cheaper anywhere else; it’s a bit like buying roses in the run up to Valentine’s Day. There’s no strap on it but they dig out one from a bag that’s a bit too small. It’ll do. I fill up from their water barrel and head off.
I feel like Rambo; I look ridiculous.
I head to where I think Chiang Mai gate is and I’m totally soaked by the time I get there. I give as good as I get but then I get it back harder. I start to worry about the safety of m phone and camera and wrap them further in the plastic bag that the gun came in, tying the bag around my belt. Now I look really ridiculous. But I don’t care; it’s all so much fun. I hang by the bridge a bit watching the water fights. I head round to the other side of the moat where all the action is, spraying people with water. I get buckets in my face and endless streams of water from a dozen pistols for my trouble.
I retreat to the other bank with a big grin on my face. I sit and try and take some photos, but I’m too far away, then I try filming a bit (see movies) but again it’s too far. Problem is I can’t get close. The camera would be killed by the sheer volume of water you get hit with.
I tuck it away and sit and watch, waiting for Vicky. A voice speaks quietly in my ear: “Excuse me.” I go to turn but feel a stream of water run down my back. I laugh and turn to see a Thai guy grinning from ear to ear. I love the politeness of it.I call Vicky and figure out that we’re obviously not in the same place. She says head towards the music so I do so, and find her by a small stage where some Thai girls dressed in Coke promo outfits are doing a little dance routine. We greet each other by soaking each other thoroughly and then head through the throng. The Thais seem to take particular delight in chucking buckets of water over farangs so we get a battering. Poor Vicky only has a tiny little pistol so has to keep refilling. She teaches me ‘Happy New Year’, which is ‘sawadee bee mai kaap’ and I proceed to follow my soakings with the phrase.
It’s not all pleasant. As the weather is usually sweltering hot at this time of year, it’s common for ice water to be chucked and squirted. The overcast day hasn’t changed this tradition and I get covered at one point by three buckets of ice ice cold water. “That,” I tell Vicky, “was REALLY, REALLY cold!” The guilty Thais laugh and jump up and down, going, “Rilly, rilly cold!”
Then disaster strikes. I notice that my camera and phone have disappeared from the water pistol bag; it has a big hole in the bottom. I panic and tell Vicky I’m heading back to look. I make my way back through, ignoring the torrents of water, desperately searching the floor for the little blue bag with my phone and camera. Some Thais notice my desperate look and start talking to me in Thai. I don’t understand but they seem to understand what I’m looking for and pass me down to a Thai woman who passes me the blue bag. I can’t tell you how relieved I am and thank her enthusiastically. Vicky tells me I’m very lucky. She’s not kidding.
Vicky and I battle our way towards Anna and some other friends of there’s. They’re sat on a roundabout, away from the water-fighting throng. They’re all soaked though, I’m pleased to see. I meet Anna’s mates Joey, a Manchester girl, Louise and Skye, an American couple, and her Australian mate Freebs, the only one not teaching in Bangkok. They’re all impressed with my gun. I keep running to the side of the roundabout to fire at some passing pick-up trucks filled with people in the back. God I’ve reverted to boyhood now.
We head for some lunch at a café that’s out of the way of the main water-fighting throng. That said, we still get sprayed occasionally by passing trucks. Nowhere is safe. After eating Anna and the others head back to their rooms – they’re all a bit hungover from the previous night – while Vicky and head back into the centre for some more water action.
We find ourselves walking down Ratchaphakhinai Road, which is a whole lot more subdued, at least relatively to the chaos around the moat. We still get bombarded with water but they seem a bit gentler here and I reign in the Rambo act a bit. It’s not long before we find out why. Walking down the street towards are the beginnings of a procession of Buddha images.
As they pass, Thai people go up and pour water from tiny bowls over them. This, I find out later, is called lustration, a rather solemn means of worship in which the highly revered statues are ‘lustrated’ with water scented with jasmine flowers. Vicky and I even get some poured over our shoulders, for which we thank the Thai gratefully. It’s a great honour, apparently.
As we move back towards the moat, we discover something else unexpected - a hippy rave. It’s being held in some travellers’ veggie café and is pumping out drum`n`bass. You can imagine the clientele – hippy travelers with smelly dreads and boozy milk-white holiday-makers. Vicky loves it and wants to hang out. I groan but bow to her wishes. It’s bloody awful and I take some solace in soaking some of these drunk-as-hell nutters. Eventually Vicky sees I’m bored as hell and we move on. But neither of us can believe we found a hippy rave in Chiang Mai!
We go back to my room to dry out a bit. Vicky’s camera has died and she tries t take some pics. I don’t think anything’s gonna come out as it makes some very strange noises. (But it does work! See pics!)
Then we arrange to meet later and Vicky heads off back to her mate Dan’s, where she’s staying.
I sleep for a while – I’m bloody exhausted after travelling all night and water-fighting all day – and wake up in a bit of a confused daze about eight o’clock. I call Vicky and go and meet her and Dan at a market just down the road. I’m totally up for some cheap Thai food so I’m happy to find them eating on the street. I order and chat to Dan a bit. He’s an American, living and working in Chiang Mai. He loves it here but he’s going home soon. He’s been here that long (nearly a year) that he’s actually starting to learn to READ Thai. Which of course makes me feel enormously inadequate!
We head to the Riverside Bar & Restaurant in a tuk-tuk (there’s no taxis here, just tuk-tuks and sawngthaews). Riverside is out of the main square and by the Mae Nam Ping river. (Which I suppose, if you think about it, is why they called it Riverside. Clever that.) It’s a massive place that has two bands, one each end, playing cover versions. We sit by one for a while waiting for the others to show up. Vicky and me buy a bottle of Sangsom whisky (which is actually rum but they call it whisky cos that’s apparently more appealing to us farang) between us. Oh dear.
It turns out the others are the other side of the bar with the other band so we head over and squeeze onto an already heavily-populated and very large table. There’s lots more new people for me to meet, plus some peeps I already know. There’s a Canadian called Kelly who talks incessantly about things I know nothing about, there’s the Canadian Rachelle who I met at Gas Station, a couple from Stoke – Hannah and Richard, Brian, who I’ve met before, and his mate Nick. These guys are the tow ladykillers in the group – Brian turns up with his ‘gig’ (Thai for casual girlfriend that’s not your proper girlfriend; a minor girlfriend if you will). And there are some other people who I don’t get introduced to.
But it doesn’t matter who’s there really. Vicky and I polish off our bottle of Sangsom and indulge in a really intense conversation about past loves – one of those bonding conversations you have with your close mates, you know the ones. But she’s got a current love to talk about, an Australian guy she met last year here in Thailand. They spent an amazing three days here together and have kept in touch and, amazingly, she’s going to go and LIVE with him in Oz quite soon. Only for a month, to see what happens, but still. She’s excited about it and dreading it, of course. I think she’s crazy. I think it’s exactly the sort of thing I would do.
Later on we leave Riverside and pile into a sawngthaew (after much, slightly embarrassing, haggling over about 20 baht).
It takes us to a club called Mandalay. It’s a club venue and we go upstairs and look down on the place, which is packed, watching amateur bands and some god-awful cabaret. Some of the bands are good, some not so. I argue with Brian’s girlfriend at one point about whether the boobs of one particular singer in a girl band are fake or not. I have to concede they do look rather large on her thin frame, and Thai women’s boobs are normally quite small.Then the awful drag act comes on. He talks 95% in Thai but you can tell the humour is the same as his UK and US counterparts – tongue-in-cheek rudeness. He strips off his dress to reveal fake boobs and a fake bulge: “I be your girlfriend tonight…” Comedy pause. “Or your boyfriend.”
Vicky seems upset and goes off on her own for a bit. Anna goes and sees if she’s okay. I know how she feels. Our conversation took it out of me a bit as well. It’s always food for thought when you get a stranger’s opinion on your too familiar emotional issues.
We eventually bail and go to another club called Spicy. It’s much smaller than it’s Bangkokian counterpart, it’s more like a large bar really, but it has the same clientele – male farang and Thai girls – and the same relentless R’n’B and hip hop. I chat to Richard a bit – he has a wicked, dry sense of humour, I like him. Then there’s much debacle over the presence of a cockroach on the table and we decide to bail.
Next thing I know we’re in a kebab shop. (What the hell country am I in again??) Richard and I take the piss hugely out of a guy that looks like Jesus. Why he doesn’t hit us, I don’t know. I suppose Jesus doesn’t do that sort of thing. (Richard tells me later that he was taking the piss out of us for being so loud, so it was a mutual affair).
I think I get to bed about five am. I think.
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