Songkran part 1 – Bangkok

It had arrived at last our first experience of Songkran in Thailand. It goes from the 12^th of April til the 16^th 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 1^st 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..