Songkran

Songkran is one of our families favorite holidays here in Thailand. It is a 3 day event that celebrates the start of the Thai New Year. Songkran originates from the Thai Buddhist tradition of sprinkling holy water on elders and Buddhist statues as a symbol of spiritual cleansing. It has lost a lot of its spiritual significance with the younger generations, and has now simply turned into a huge country-wide water fight. Thais travel to large cities to participate in the huge water fights there. In Chiangmai, the city is filled with people in the backs of trucks, songtheows and standing along the streets with squirt guns, hoses and buckets of water ready to soak each other. Since this is the hottest time of the year, being doused with the water is incredibly refreshing. Our family celebrated by Troy filling up the truck bed with water, and us riding around the city soaking everyone in site, while being soaked in return. The occasional ice water being thrown on us took our breath away, but must admit, was most welcome. We had a great day of celebration and are thankful for a refreshing activity for a tremendously hot time of year!