Songkran water festival

People i met here, who contributed to and improved my trip: Juliana (Russia)

We arrived into Bangkok on Friday evening, after 13 hours on a bus. We mustered enough energy to have a quick bite to eat, then went straight to bed. The following day we hit the streets, to see what kind of celebrations would be going on for the Songkran water festival, which celebrates the Thai New Year. After instantaneously getting soaked by people carrying water guns, we decided to buy one of our own, to really become a part of the proceedings!

We managed to find the busiest area of the city, around Khao San Road and walking down one of the streets just off from it, we were thoroughly covered in white paste from head to toe (unfortunately some people thought rubbing it your eyes and ears was clever), before going onto Khao San Road and getting thoroughly drenched, which was good for washing some of the paste away.

There were loud speakers blasting out music, an abundance of water guns and just people throwing buckets of icy water over each other! After a few hours walking through the streets, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and go and use the internet.

No sooner had we put on fresh clothes, they were filthy again. Unfortuantely this wasn't really 'in the spirit of things' in my opinion. As we walked 50m from our hotel to the internet cafe, we asked a woman not to cover us with water and paste, as we had a bag with all our valuables in. She pretended she was going to help us walk past, then grabbed my arms whilst someone else not only covered me in paste, but did a pretty good job of rubbing it into my eyes and mouth. It was a horrible thing to do and left my eyes bloodshot and stinging.

It could also have damaged my camera, mp3 etc etc, but they clearly had no respect for peoples well being or property. Clearly they thought this was a pretty clever thing to do, as they were trying to do the same to several people who really didn't want it, including one elderly lady who had just had eye surgery. It certainly dampened my spirits and made me wonder why people think that intentionally hurting and upsetting people is a way of 'celebrating' the New Year.

That evening i became really sick and i'm still not sure whether it was a result of food poisoning or ingesting some of the paste that was been so unsparingly rubbed into me. Either way, it resulted in 2 full days been spent on the toilet or in bed.