Happy New Year! Celebrating Songkran in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We landed in Thailand on the third day of a three day celebration of the Thai new year Songkran. Chiang Mai celebrates with a water fight citywide for three straight days. Katy and I were just planning on strolling around visiting Buddhist temples and other city landmarks, which we did do. But the highlights were mostly walking in between the landmarks. The streets were filled with people, everyone was on holiday and most stores were closed. Walking the streets, we got squirted with water guns, had buckets of water tossed at us, and Katy wahs even chased by a person carrying a plastic bottle of drinking water.  Katy screeched a bunch but I just took it and enjoyed it, occasionally bowing in gratitude at the water sharers.

It is hot here - in the 90s - but the real enjoyment of the water splashing is everyone's collective enjoyment of the holiday and not the obvious cooling effect. It's amazing what a difference it is from China or Japan: smiles all around and no judgment at all on faces. This place is beautiful and while we only have another day here, I could not be more thankful that we were wandering the streets during Songkran.

Tomorrow the festivities will be over and we will be off to Laos, but today we spent 11 hours with elephants on nature preserve surrounded by farmland. Not a bad way to spend a day either (more on that later...). Songkran is a fullblown citywide celebration and for us was a full-blown cultural experience.

We bought a mango smoothie in the middle of the afternoon just to post up at an outdoor bar and watch the water fighting. Some people had backpacks of water attached to guns, others had huge supersoakers, and others were simply using plastic pails refilled from streetside drums of water. The firefighters were out resupplying pick up truck beds laden with mobile celebrators. Even the police officers were gettting drenched. Thais and foreigners alike donned plastic pouches around their necks to keep their cell phones dry. Epic.

We did see about a dozen temples in under 4 hours, got soaked, laughed, and even shopped a little. We are staying in the Old Town, where most of the activity is likely happening, but what an awesome surprise its been. I did zero research but it has only made the experience that much better.

There was a sweet cover band playing American rock and pop where we watched from the smoothie bar. I recoreded a few songs, but we also had a traditional Thai dance held right in front of us. There was some traditional music being played, but it was drowned out by the band and shouts of ecstatic joy coming from soakers and soakees alike.

Then we got sandwiches at a spot that could have been back in Portland. I had a chicken club and Katy had an egg and cheese sandwich on a croissant. It was a fancy place for Chiang Mai, but ten dollars for two of us to eat and drink large beers. I could totally see why and how expats get lost in Thailand, it seems like a total adult playground and the Thai people have an amazing warmth to them. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that it's their spring/new years celebration, but so far it's been great. Id come back next month for a few days, by myself, with Katy, or even in a large group. The street food we ate on our first night was delicious and ridiculously cheap. We like Thai food back home but everything we have eaten here has been even better. Our hotel is fairly expensive at $70/night but we cohld definitely have found perfectly fine accomodations for half the price if we weren't pressed for time and staying in the old town.

I almost don't want to leave but am very much looking forward to visiting Luang Prabang in Laos for the next week.