Songkran: Water Battle at Khao Sarn and Silom Road!

I think many foreigners have heard about Songkran. If you have not, im gonna write about it now.

Songkran is an anual festival from April 13-15, which is the hottest time of the year in Thailand. About 60-70 years ago, Songkran was to celebrate Thai New Year which was on April 1. We celebrate these 3 days by throwing or shooting water to other people. You can get other people wet and they dont get mad at you. But you should not throw the water at the vendors who is working in that area or people who is in the work suit and going to work. And also should not throw the ice or dirty water to the other.

People here always take this chance to come back to their hometown to visit their family. I think it is similar to the Christmas that you come back home to visit your parents, grandparents or any other relatives.

I'm gonna talk about my experience with Songkran of this year now. I had a long weekend from 11-15 and then was extended to 19. If you still remember, there was the protest by the red shirt protestors during that time. I was watching the news about the situation in Bangkok to see if we could go out for Songkran or not. Well, the situation seemed bad, the protesters took some areas and took some public buses and burnt them. However, it was my boyfriends first time with Songkran so he wanted to join it.

We took the taxi to Khao Sarn road, the famous place for the festival. All the taxi drivers said no but we still had hope and finally got one who was willing to drive us there.

Khao Sarn is a place that you can see many foreigners and it is always one of the best places for celebrating Songkran. It is always very crowded there. And yep, I forgot to tell you one thing. You should not bring anything you dont want it to get wet like mobile phone or camera with you. It will get damaged by the water.

On 13th of April we took a taxi from the apartment at silom to Khao Sarn. It was not far at all. On the way we saw a burning bus right in front of us. Oh man we were very close to the red shirt area.

People at Khao Sarn were less than I expected. I went there 2-3 years ago and it was very crowded. Actually the situation about the protest prevented people from coming out. However, there were many people there. We enjoyed shooting water and got wet by the other there for a couple hours. During that time, the road was closed and police kept telling us to go back from where we were because it was very close to the red shirt area. Seemed like nobody listened to them and still walked around there.

After we ate, we agreed to come home. We walked to the burning bus for pictures and behind the bus we saw a group of the red shirt people with another buring bus and some buses they took to block the road. We walked there and took some photos.

We took a taxi back to the apartment. The taxi driver dropped us at Silom road. Wow it was very crowded there! Much more people than at Khao Sarn. The road was full of people and the car couldnt get in. Its why the taxi dropped us there. We had to walk along the Silom Road back to the apartment. The next battle had begun!!