Songkran

I spent much of my second day in Koh Chang on a snorkel boat with roughly 300 happy, smiley Thai people and exactly three other farang like me. I wouldn't call the snorkelling world-class but I think that's what you get when you send four similar sized boats to the same destinations. There were life vests, lots of them, and lots of people who couldn't swim. This baffles me. Why go on a snorkelling trip if you can't swim?

Alas. The day was beautiful, the water clearish and after eight hours of sun and sea, I was ready to head back to the hotel sharpish. 

Koh Chang, and the rest of Thailand, had other plans. As it turned out, I'd booked my holiday over the Songkran Festival, the Thai New Year. The festival is a three-day event celebrated according to the lunar cycle and the first full moon in April is considered the new year.

In the temples, there's a lot of Buddha celebrations, throwing (pouring) water onto Buddha's feet and gathering with family members near and far. 

On the street, that transpires into a happy kind of bedlam. The young, old and everyone in between, Thai, white and otherwise gather their water guns, buckets, hoses, essentially any receptacle that holds water and proceed to deluge every passerby in a message of washing away the bad luck for the upcoming year. 

In Koh Chang, where one main road covers the circumference of the extremely hilly island (there's even a viewpoint called 'The Amalfi Point'), this brought traffic to a standstill. Freshly arrived off our snorkel tour, we loaded into our transfer, a Songtaew, or large pickup truck with open seating in the back. Ten minutes into the 30-minute transfer turned an hour-long, the people riding in the back had been soaked, doused, bucketed and hosed more than a dozen times. By some minor miracle, and before knowing what I knew about Songkran, I'd finagled a seat in the front of the truck. The driver and I giggled gleefully at the screams of the passengers in the back. 

People travelling via motorbike had it particularly bad, At several points they were stopped by pedestrians in the middle of the road and doused with water then covered in a chalk-like substance. I still haven't got to the bottom of this one. 

What I can say is that after an hour in the back of the truck, the Thai people in the back resembled bedraggled cats. Happy, smiley bedraggled ones. The whole event was taken in good fun and replayed itself again and again yesterday and today.  As I head to Bangkok now, I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out in a city.

And I'll be leaving all my electronics back at home.