Hi All,
Happy New Year Thailand and Cambodia.Songkran is the traditional Thai
new year festival, celebrated on April 13 - 15 (although in reality the
festivities last for way longer than a few days), traditionally for
Thai people it is the time of year to go and visit family, buy them
gifts and visit a temple to make merit.The new year marks a new
beginning and Thai people believe that the systematic cleansing and
purification of all things physical and spiritual will rid them of all
evil and misfortune so they can make a fresh start to the new year.The
ritual of cleansing Buddha statues is important at this time of year
also, people will carefully bathe the statues with scented water, after
the statue has been bathed it is believed that pouring a small amount
of the water used to bathe the statue over the shoulder of a family
member will bring them good fortune - it is this process which has
evolved into what is now best described as the world's largest
collective water fight! We didn´t know what to expect in Bangkok this
year as the Prime Minister had spoken of banning the festival this year.
We decided that the safest options was to catch a cab back into Bangkok
and this turned out to be the most sensible option that we could have
taken because despite having been told that the red shirt protesters
had dispersed it become quite apparent that they had not dispersed and
that there were still areas that were no go zones that were blocked
by red shirts.The streets seemed unusually quiet and maybe it was due
to the new year or maybe it was the fact that a majority of backpackers
had fled the Kao San area.Our guest house manageress said that they had
had to take in people from Kao san Rd when the protests turned
violent and from what she had said they were rather traumatised from
what they had heard and seen.
We cautiously head into pack backer territory to find some lunch and
gather a few supplies for our journey to Ko Tao.Despite the turmoil in
Bangkok with the Red Shirt(UDD) anti government protests people were
starting to line the streets with super soaker's, water pistols
,hoses, high pressure cleaners, garbage bins of water and generally
any vessel that they could lay their hands on that was capable of
holding water.Foreigners and Thai people were quickly doused in water
before a paste of talc and water was smeared on their faces thankfully
the Thai citizens tend to cleanse Thais more than foreigners so whilst
we go wet we got off lightly in comparison to some people.
Rounded the corner and quickly backtracked as we had inadvertently
stumbled upon a series of memorials to people who had been kill in the
battle a few days prior to our arrival and the tension was almost
palpable The area looked like a war zone with crime scene tape
surrounding numerous areas.Decided that it was time to get the hell out
of there and do what we needed to do and leave.Unfortunately things
aren´t going to end peacefully and there will undoubtedly be more
bloodshed before this situation is resolved.
The party really started to fire up as the evening progressed and when
we ventured out to find dinner people were everywhere and we seemed to
be in their cross hairs so we were soaked by the time that we walked
the 400m to one of our favourite cafes / cooking schools and our faces
were smeared with talc paste.We listening to a band for a while from a
safe vantage point across the street from a small club.Why didn´t we
go closer? because someone was playing with a street fire hydrant and
was showering passer bys be it bus ,car, tuk tuk, bicycle or
pedestrian with water.Time to retreat to the dry guest house.
Bye For Now,
David And Vanessa
