The biggest water fight in the world.

They call the day songkran, which is Thai New Year, and by the Thai calendar yesterday they were celebrating the first day of the year 2053 – shit the last 44 years went quick for me. For Songkran the whole country shuts down to celebrate and have a water fight. It doesn’t matter if your wearing nappies and crawling or if you have false teeth and use a walking stick, everyone gets into it.

Most people have a water gun, but the seasoned professionals arm themselves with hoses, talcum powder, and buckets of iced water. Trucks drive around with armies of dancing people in the back soaking people from the massive water buckets. Like an African nation in civil war there are road blocks along the road where passing trucks are made to pull over so the occupants can be washed down and have their faces smeared with a colourful paint by a smiling Thai person exclaiming “happy new year”.

I only took 3 photos from the whole day as my camera wasn’t waterproof, and telling someone to not throw water on you because your holding a camera doesn’t work. It was funny seeing travellers that had just arrived, obviously oblivious that it was Songkran. As they are carrying their suitcases through the streets and are NOT appreciating getting soaked by the drunken revellers. The poor travellers must have thought they had landed on some kind of island that’s a mental institution. The funny thing is that the more someone says don’t get me, the more they get soaked.