Songkran
I went out to the Internet cafe trying to avoid the monsoon. Today is Songkran, a water festival in Thailand, where everyone is out in the streets pouring, squirting, dumping water on eachother. I am dry walking out of my guesthouse and I dodged my way to the cafe with only a small splash on my skirt. I figured if I didnt catch anyones eyes, they would spare me. WRONG.
While sitting in front of the computer looking at flights home again, I hear buckets being poured outside from the top floor on unsuspecting passerby's who scream from shock. On my way back I see a group of kids near my guesthouse excited to throw buckets of water on the falang (foreigner). There was no way to escape unless I took the long way home. So I smiled and turned around.
The alley led me to the main street where traffic was backed up and trucks filled with people in the back with buckets and squirt guns in position and big blue bins filled with ice water. Crowding the sidewalks were also soaking wet people with barrels and throwing water on every one in their proximity. I stood there with disbelief, jaw dropped. I just walked into a war zone to avoid a squabble.
Everyone looked at me and saw my dry clothes and charged with their weapons in hand. In the first brigade a Thai girl gave me a sweet smile and a hug while holding a hose over my head sweetly saying happy new year. I felt shots all over my body from the guns and saw everyone smiling with viscousness as they dipped their bucket in the ice water to pour on me. I looked like a wet sad dog in my long skirt and tshirt after a few seconds. They laughed and asked me to join them in the fight but I walked on, for a few feet ahead I had another battle to fight. Although not really a battle more like a surrender to the powerful Thai and foreigner army front because I had no weapons of destruction or defense. I walked into a few more groups of evil doers until I got to my guesthouse.
Almost home, I was wringing out my drenched skirt that was sticking to my legs embarrassingly when another group of Thai girls were waiting with a hose and more guns. She laughed at my pathetic appearance and said happy new year to me. I held my arms up welcoming the warm water, dissapating the chill from the ice water seconds before.
I went back to my room to change into dry clothes and went out again to meet a friend. I decided to go to a nearby smoothie shop to seek asylum while I waited. Immediately upon leaving my guesthouse, I was caught in a guerilla attack with an ice bucket over my head from a second story room. Sneaky girl laughed when I screamed.
With the smoothie shop in sight I walked faster. Then I saw him. An enemy falang with a ghostbuster backpack full of water. He looked like an exterminator. He stepped out of the shop and his eyes lit up as he saw me approaching.
He got me good.
I ordered my carrot juice and sat down hoping people would not attack whilst enjoying my drink. I watched the fury around me until I decided to seek revenge and throw buckets at anything that moved. I soaked a little girl and she cried. Now I was the one with the evil laugh. The best is the sneak attack especially if the person was dry which was rare to find.
Finally my friend comes and we ride on his bike and get drenched again. It was impossible to dry off. We went to the main street and I threw ice water, but I felt bad because I knew how it felt.
It was getting late around 7 and I was getting cold. I changed into dry clothes...again. When I went back outside a little foreign kid with a gun tried to squirt me but I yelled at him and his mom gave me a dirty look. Another girl wanted to throw a bucket on my dry clothes but after an evil eye she just watered my feet. Some friends and I went to a bar and listened to bad live Thai music and I was attacked by mosquitos. I was happy to go back home at 1am and sleep.
4/15/11 Today is the last day of Songkran but I don't think the water fight will end. I stayed inside to stay dry today but went out for some cigs (yes I started again) and got a squirt. Today is really hot. Tomorrow I start my massage course! I still haven't purchased a return ticket because I'm waiting to find a cheaper ticket but prices keep going up! And I have to go to the Burmese border to renew my visa soon.
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