Songkran

The brown stinky moat water can't flow quickly enough back into the sewer system, so I have to wade. Meanwhile tons and tons of water are shot, poured, thrown and ejected towards me. I am soaking. I keep my gun level while evading as much of the water as I can and shooting back at the people who seem to have a lot of fun to see me drenched. Right hand aim, left hand pump. Pump, aim, shoot, duck, strafe, pump, aim, shoot, jump, evade, aim and shoot again. The adrenaline keeps you going. Lucky for me it's all water based, I think I died at least a couple of hundred of times in the last days.

Songkran is probably the biggest water festival in the world. It is the celebration of the new year according to the Thai calendar, fixed on 13 to 15 April. Although celebrated all over Thailand and Laos, the biggest and longest one is in the north, a city by the name of Chiang Mai. And it happens to be my home town for the last 2 weeks.

And big it was, I can tell you. Probably the most 4 days of fun I had in my life. Almost impossible to put down in text, it is big, it is fun and it is wet. Chiang Mai, the old city part, is enveloped by a moat. Next to the moat a 2 lane road, one way only, all the way around. You can drive around in about 20 minutes by car, but not during Songkran. People get pickup trips, load buckets of water on the back, and drive around the city, next to the moat. In the meantime there is literally thousands and thousands people standing in between the road and moat with buckets and a rope attached, pulling water out of the moat, throwing it onto people who are in the pickup trucks or surrounding area. You are nowhere safe. There are charges of big groups of people (say fifty) attacking each other from the left and the right.

To try to stay dryish, I took a carbon board from the macdonalds and hid behind it. Not to much effect though, someone took a bucket and poured it from behind all over me. From then on the term 'songkran-money' was born: drenched bills in a wet wallet. Water balloons, buckets, water pistols and super soakers everything is allowed in this festival. There are signs everywhere in the city, especially around the moats, from 'No water in the building please' to 'Please don't bring guns inside' that have absolutely no result what so ever. Every thing is drenched.

And I shot 2 police cops (in the back).

The worst part is yet to come. While the moat water is dirty and stinky and probably caused some illness, stretching out for the next week, big trucks that sell huge blocks of ice drive around. You have you pick up truck, and dump some of these blocks in the bucket, the water now becomes super cold. Although it is the warmest time of the year, I got cold at some occasions.

These 4 days were awesome. I hope to put some pictures and movies online very soon, because words won't do this any good. Even the pictures can't make someone fully comprehend how this festival was. Too bad my (second) camera is broken, so I have to rely on other peoples cameras. But I'll find some, and upload them asap.

Fantastische foto's van een andere wereld!

maar je moet wel oppassen. je ziet wat er gebeurt als je geen gele sjaal draagt!

O Olaf, where art thou???

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