It had arrived at last our first experience of Songkran in
Thailand. It goes from the 12th of April til the 16th
of April and nobody in the country is safe from the biggest “water
fight” party in the world with everyone from young to old getting
involved and having fun. Songkran, which is Thailand's New Years
celebration, with the water symbolising the cleaning or washing away
of all your sins. Oh and also it was the start of the Year 2557 on
their calender, so I'm living a couple of hundred years in the
future... still no hover-boards though :-(
We decided to spend 2 days in Bangkok and 2 days back in Khon Kaen, as it starts a bit earlier in BKK and is located all around the city
with the largest collection of people set up around Kao San Road and
Rambutri Road. We took the night train to Bangkok from Khon Kaen
which left at 8 pm and was due to arrive at 6 am (saves you a nights
accommodation). We had decided to take the train as we have taken many
in the past and they usually turn out to be a lot of fun.
We booked
second class sleepers and boarded heading straight for the drinks
car. Here you could smoke and drink as they made up your very beds
which are surprisingly really comfortable and I've often had some of
the best nights sleep on these trains and all for 480 Baht one way, which is a very cheap and comfortable way to travel. So we sat down
and played some cards in the drinks cart and met a another few groups
of farangs doing the same, as is the norm with the night trains and
always fun.. or so we thought, as this one was being run by the
formally named Nurse Ratchett.
Nurse Ratchett was running on the
drinks cart but clearly had fell out of love with the job a long time
ago, as with every cheer from a drunk traveler or song that would
break out, you could see the veins in her forehead ready to burst. She
accused us of bringing our own alcohol onto the train, which is
allowed just not in the drinks car, but we were trying to do it on
the cheap and out of sight, so would go back to our cabins and fill
up the drinks we had. At 10 pm sharp she began demanding we finish
our drinks and get out as they wanted to sleep there. This was a 1st
for us as all other night trains we have gotten the bar stayed open
until 1-2 am. So we purchased a few more drinks and headed for the
bathroom section as it was large enough to sit down and play music, as
it doubled as one of the staffs' sleeping quarters, but he wasn't
around on this particular train.
We arrived in BKK one day before the festival and asked if the
water fight had begun, as we needed to go buy our weapons for the
upcoming battle. We managed to pick up some decent “big ass”water
guns for 250 Baht ( 6 Euro) after shopping around. Also always ask to
test the gun before walking away as from what we seen, every second
one was faulty. We wandered around the MBK shopping center, the biggest
I'm guessing in Thailand, as it is like a small town inside and it sells
everything. I think we counted at least 10 dentists offices in the
place and got lost in a market style section of the place that sold
clothes.
We headed to Kao San to see if they had started the festivities
already and luckily we had purchased a water proof bag in the MBK (for about 200 Baht) as the moment we stepped from a taxi Kristine
had a large bucket of ice water poured down her back and let out a
huge scream. Now we have to survive 4 days of this ☺. We filled up
our guns with ice water from the numerous coolers outside every bar
and restaurant.
It's hard to describe as I pictured a few people
getting involved but you couldn't walk 5 minutes through the entire
city without families from young to old laughing dancing and
throwing water at passing pedestrians, cars, buses with open windows
with people dressed in work gear and especially Tuk Tuks with out
retribution from the now soaked and cold travelers.
There was no
angry replies just genuine smiles and laughs or to our surprise a
small water gun would be pulled out and sprayed back. Every one was
wearing water proof neck bags, as I'm sure the number of broken and
water damaged electronics must be a godsend for Apple and Samsung
here in the days following the party, as it's impossible not to get
drenched.
We walked the full length of the street shooting into the crowd
and having numerous buckets of ice water thrown at us and which
during the day is amazing and cooling but after being wet for 6 hours
and it starts getting cooler it becomes an evil shock to the system and
if you get frustrated easily we would advise to find a bar and set up
shop. We traveled around a lot trying different bars and trying to
navigate through thousands of party goers does get annoying after a
while as there is no “people traffic” system and on occasion the
crowd just keeps pushing until the inevitable crushing of people into
bars and restaurants adjacent to the road happened, and with kids in
the crowd this annoyed me a lot.
The bars had girls on podiums outside who's job it was to get
sprayed with water for the day and night and hold signs trying to get
customers in offering 3 beers for 100 baht (yep, only €2.50). I
did find it unusual that a lot of the bars had live music and
singers holding hooked up mics as people sprayed them with water but
Thailand never had the highest health and safety restraints.
We stayed and partied for 2 days. We had an amazing time, although
after the day was over I felt like it would have been better to do
Songkran in a less chaotic part of Thailand. Luckily we had
planned 2 days of Songkran in Khon Kaen, were we wouldn't have to wait
45 minutes to walk a 5 minute road because the organizers had set up
beer tents in the middle of the road, which made no sense.
So after 2 days of madness and as we were getting the night train
back to Khon Kaen at 9 pm, we decided to take a break and went to the
Siam City Park, which is like the Disneyland/Universal of Thailand.
It had a huge water park attached and we joked how we wanted to get
away from being soaked all day, so where better to go then a water
park :)
It was only 500 baht entry, had some of the biggest looping
roller coaster in the world.. or so they claimed and the biggest wave
pool in the world but not the strongest by a long shot as it was more
ripples than waves. The water park was amazing with fountain areas
and good slides set up around the park. Food wasn't too over priced as
is with a lot of these amusement parks and the longest queue was for
the log flume clocking in 40 minutes. All other rides and roller
coasters were a 5-15 minutes wait only.
They had a huge dinosaur
section with Jurassic park style rides and walk through animatronic
dinosaur experience, which was interesting. The copyright people would
have a field day here as they have a tiny town which is blaring “
Its a small world after all” the Disney ride that everyone loves to
hate.
And we had a go on a ride covered in spider man pictures only
when we asked the translated name from Thai we were told its the
“spider devil ride”... yeah that will fool them.
As we were leaving we spotted two guys on stilts and one leaned down and a mother handed him a baby. Brave move on the mothers part.
That night our group of 7 took the night train, due to arrive back
at 5 am in Khon Kaen for one more day of craziness at Songkran..
