THAILAND’S WATER FESTIVAL
jets of chilled water, manic shrieks and
waves of cheesy Thai techno. After a while,
you realise the driver isn’t frantically hooting
his horn to deter the hose-wielders and
bucket-hurlers, but to get their attention. He’s
laughing now, but might stop when he finds
himself being paid with a wodge of sodden
pulp. Double-wrapped waterproof pouches
for phones and cash are a Songkran essential.
So too, if you run the watery gauntlet along
that microbially rich moat, are swimming
goggles. Wet, wet, wet. You feel it in your
fingers, you feel it in your toes. Thailand’s
government, reacting to traditionalist
concerns, has issued an edict for decorous
restraint, though you’d never guess it.
A dry shirt is a red rag: unassuming,
overdressed visitors are given a full-body
tsunami the second they leave their hotels.
The street is a logjam of pick-ups, each home
to a water butt and a sodden, gleeful family.
One group totes giant syringes, piped into
backpack reservoirs. High-velocity, pump-
action super-soakers are the preferred youth
choice, but the more experienced have
come to learn that for instant, shock-and-
awe impact, nothing beats a bucket. The
Songkran aqua-battle is by no means just a
young man’s game: put a brimming pail in
a grandfather’s hands and he’s seven again,
tapping into that ageless, universal thrill
of the spill. As an outsider, it’s difficult to
subdue the hardwired reflex to take theassailant to angry task. Even more so when
it transpires that you’re expected to thank
them for the blessed sluicing away of grubby
old misfortunes. Every visitor to Thailand
will be told about sanuk, the national credo
of taking pleasure from every life experience,
both rough and smooth. The sight of very
drunk people peaceably hurling water into
each other’s faces for four days straight must
rank as sanuk’s ultimate expression.
‘For 360 days, Thai people are super-polite
and respectful,’ says a very wet Athirath
Arunyaka, up from Bangkok to soak up
Songkran with his Chiang Mai-resident
family. ‘This is like a purge of all our bad
behaviour.’ It’s the final night of the fight,
the storm before the calm. In the morning
the silent streets are lined with a colourful
detritus of cracked buckets, broken water
pistols and soggy garlands, the air heavy
with old beer and incense. Tentatively, the
pavements fill with the extremely old and
the very young, kept inside for their own
safety. Previously unviable cycle rickshaws
return to the road, personal space is once
more painstakingly respected. But the heat
is already bullying and today there will be
no baptismal relief.first light with the hectic presentation of
monkish alms. Now, the pavements are
dense with expectant worshippers and
street vendors hawking festival fuel in all
its forms: bags of khaep mu, the deep-fried
pork-rind that accessorises every meal in
the city; the challenging blend of bitter,
black herb jelly and condensed milk that
is chao kuai; crate after crate of topless,
hurl-ready bottles of cloyingly perfumed
water. It always rains on this parade.
The dancers and musicians in the
procession’s first ranks are a graceful riot of
tortured woodwind, garish silk and delicate,
synchronised movement. Lined up behind
them, half-hidden by rolling arcs of spray,
stretches an endless cavalcade of flower-
smothered carnival floats, each bearing a
Buddha on temporary leave from one of the
city’s showpiece temples. In the clamorous,
sodden hours ahead, every statue and
spectator will enjoy a comprehensive
ceremonial cleanse. Yet as a Songkran water
fight, this is no more than a dry run.
Come early evening, and Chiang Mai
is awash. A tide seeps over the threshold
of every commercial establishment and
well-oiled, well-watered drinkers drench
each other from the forecourt of every bar.
In the three days that follow, taking a tuk-tuk
through the downtown crossfire feels like
an unhinged theme-park ride. You slide
helplessly about on sodden vinyl, strafed byTIM MOORE has written 10 travel books. Last
year, for The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold,
he cycled the route of the old Iron Curtain.The moats around the
Old City and Huay
Kaew, to the north-
east, are the centre of
the action