This past weekend I went up to Bangkok with a friend that lives in my condo block. When we had planned the weekend, we had no idea that it was the same time as Songkran (the Thai New Year Festival) aka The Water Festival. My friend Katy had been in Phuket during Songkran a few years back so she knew what it would be like. If you Google Songkran, it's also known as the 'Worlds Biggest Water Fight'. Our flight and hotel was non-refundable so we decided to go and make the best of it!
From what I understand, Songkran started out as a way for Buddhist Thai's to wash away their sins from the previous year and start new for the coming year. They put water on people's wrists as a way to do that. Well, now it's morphed in the massive water fight for the weekend. People stand on the streets with buckets of water, super soakers, fire hoses...pretty much anything that they can use...and they squirt everyone from pedestrians to people on mopeds or in tuk tuks. Then there are the people that drive around in the back of trucks with buckets of water to get everyone else that the people on the streets can't get!
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| Our taxi was sitting in traffic and there were people on both sides of the street. Luckily we had the doors locked as while we were stopped, they tried to open the back door of the cab to throw a bucket of water in on us. Crazy! |
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| Trucks with water...and squirt guns... |
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| I didn't take this picture, but this is one of the main water fight streets...we definitely avoided this spot! |
I really had wanted to wander the streets and see Bangkok, but a lot of the local shops were closed for the weekend holiday. We did find an awesome place that did Thai Massages. It was like a factory for massages with the amount of people that they had working there! I wasn't sure what to expect of a 'Thai Massage' but it was great - a massage with crazy stretching. My lady was like a spider money standing on my back, etc. And the best part, it was only $20 for 2 hours!! We also found a mall that had different floors with different themes from various parts of the world. My favorite was *of course* the San Francisco level! They had a cable car, Golden Gate Bridge, even had a 'Scomas' (too bad it was a coffee shop Mom!).
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| Health Land - the best Thai massage place |
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| The Golden Gate Bridge in Bangkok? Kinda cool! |
We also went to a new market called Asiatique. It was right on the river and was way less chaotic than the streets of Bangkok were during the festival. There were a ton of vendors selling things from touristy trinkets, to scarves to dishes. Too bad I didn't have any extra room in my carry-on! It was a nice night out so we had dinner outside (and water fight free!).
The food in Thailand was also amazing - such great curries and pad thai. The food alone was worth the trip!
One more picture : an actual fireworks factory? Made the insurance underwriter in me squirm!
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