We were very lucky to experience the Buddhist/Hindu celebration of Songkran, known as the water festival, that honour the Thai New Year in Hua Hin. This festival, celebrated widely throughout Southeast Asia is based on a Zodiac calendar, it has strong religious, cultural and family components. In recent years it has been popularized into a huge water fight and communal party. The origins of this important festival honour preparation and good tithing for the new year, honouring family members particularly parents and elders in the community, as well as giving alms to the Buddhist monks. The celebrations last 3 days, typically from April 13th-15th. And many Thais use this as a time to return home and visit their families, to clean their homes, the temples and shared communal spaces.
After learning about the festival, we were prepared to get wet when we ventured out into the streets on the main festival day. Within 30 seconds of getting out of our grab a lovely Thai woman smiled at us as she gave a Thai blessing and poured a bowel of water over each of us. The kids were anxious to get water guns and as we wandered into the main street there was a huge stage with live music, a large bubble area, and a huge rain channel. Everywhere we turned people had huge water guns, buckets of water or buckets of a chalk like paste. As you moved through the crowd of people many people sprayed you with water and a huge smile or gently rub coloured paste on your cheeks as they repeated well whishes’ for the New Year. At times people would dump really cold water from buckets on you as you walked by, at times this was a shock but the temperature was in the temperature was plus 35 C, it was beautifully sunny, thus the cold water was often more pleasant than it sounds. The entire family had a great time engaging in water fights with strangers, when Alastair and I got tired, the kids enjoyed and intense water fight with some Thai kids while we enjoyed a cold beer. We stopped for dinner away from the main area on our way home (hoping to give ourselves a chance to dry off). We met a nice couple from Castlegar and chatted with them for a bit. Although we thought we were nice and dry, as we climbed into the car we had booked as a return trip we got surprised with more buckets of really cold water! Luckly the lovely woman who had given us a few rides already, was well prepared for Songkran and had lined her backseat with blankets.
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