SongKran

Here's what happened during each day of SongKran (copied from my diary):

Monday April 13, 2009

Well so much for Songkran festival... I talked to Patch on the phone last night, since we had plans to go Songkraning together today... but she figured that with all the demonstrations and what not going on, it was better to stay home today and watch on the news about what was happening downtown with Songkran.. and if all looked safe, we would go on the 14th.. Well, to be perfectly hnest, things don't look all that safe. I went to Rose's school this morning to meet with her, Elisabeth, Sinan, and Khaled.. and on the way there I was really surprised to ee how empty the streets were.. not just of people playing water, but also of cars, buses, pedestrians, etc. It was crazy.. like the city was dead or something. We watched the news in Rose's AFS room, and apparently the protestors had burned a bus or 2, which is why none of he buses were running. I honestly don't understand what is going on with the government here. All I know is that there is a red team and a yellow team, and that right now the red ones are wrecking havoc in BKK. So much actually that Songkran just isn't really happening now. Which sucks, bnecause this is my first, and probably only, chance to playing Songkran.. but what could suck even more would be if Thailand is put under MarshallLaw, which would mean all exchangers will be sent home... The only thing we ended up doing today that was at all Songkran like, was walking around Rose's school and spraying this liquid on different shrines.. which seems weird to me, because I would think that in Western culture, throwing liquid on something that is supposed to be sacred would seem really disrespectful.. unless it's like holy water or something I guess....

Tuesday April 14, 2009

Today was definately a very productive day.. Finished my AFS yearbook page this morning, worked on my afghan.. got Easter mail from Canada, including the movie Religulous, which I watched already. At 4 I met Patch at Tops where we were picked up and taken to Cherry's house to get ready for Songkran. It was kind of a weird feeling being back there.. kind of made me remember all the good times I had there and how there were certain things I liked there better than with my new host family. I got to see P'Keng's baby girl, who is completely bald and is uber cute. P'Beam wasn't there though.. which kind of sucked because I was hoping ot see her. Everyone else was there though.. all of my old host brothers, etc. It was kind of funny because I guess they didn't realize that now I can speak and understand Thai alot better than when I lived with them. The first thing P'Keng said when he saw me was how fat I am (in Thai of course), and I told him I understood what he said... which I guess made him kind of embarassed :S Anyways, we all climbed in the back of the truck, where we were equipped with 3 big barrels of water and various water guns. I pretty much just used a water gun the whole tim, because that way I could stay sitting down rather than having to stand and scoop water out of the water barrel, which I didn't like because it was slippery and I was parnoid that I would fall. Honestly, the whole time all I was thinking about was how illegal this whole festival would be in Canada... people standing in the back of pickup trucks throwing water around? Not the safest thing in the world, that's for sure. We drove around until w were out of water... everytime we would go by a group of people at the side of the road who were throwing water at traffic, we would stop and have a mini water fight with them. Some people would have ice cold water to throw on us, while others had powder or colouring mixed in with their water (and the powder/water mixture really stung your eyes), and some would just run up with a handful of powder and smear it on you face.. and everyone seemed to want to rub powder on the foreigner's (i.e. me) face. The whole thing was fun, but it really seems that this whole festival is an excuse for Thai people to be drunk in public and maybe do things that would seem inappropraite during other times. Like Rose told me, Songkran gives Thai people a chance to be crazy.

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Elisabeth and I went to Rose's school, where we met Rose (obviously).. Khaled and Sinan eded up not coming... The original plan had been for Rose to take us to the Corcodile Farm outside of BKK, but since Songkran downtown was back in fullswing, we decided to go to Khao San instead.. and I'm so glad we did because Khao San during Songkran is definatley an experience of a lifetime. It was sooo crowded with people (almost as bad as Central World at New Years) and amazingly they were pretty much all Thai, which is weird because that area is usually all foreigners. Some people had water guns, but mostly peope just walked around smearing a mixture of powder and water on eachother's faces.. or pouring bottled water down eachother's backs. And I swear pretty much every guy we walked by was determine dto touch mine and Elisabeth's faces. Quite amazingly we ran into Galina and another AFS girl from Germany.. we walked around with them for a bit, and then headed home. While I enjoyed the whole Songkran thing, I must admit I liked the whole actual water fighting aspect of it better than the powder aspect.. mainly just because I wasn't fond of all these random guys rubbing their hands all over my face. I was also surprised at how slutty Thai girls generally become during Songkran.. smoking and drinking in public.. just doing things that good Thai girls really never do.

I got home just in time to shower and get dressed them go to Ron's home welcoming (?) party at the new house they just moved into. It was pretty much just annoyed by the same guy who annoyed me at Ron's baby shower the whole time. He was just trying to force everyone to talk to me, even if they didn't want to, which was kind of embarassing... Then of course he told me he knows "I love you" in 11 languages, and told me something completely nonsense that he claimed was "I love you" in French. And then there was the whole confusion of him asking me if I was Catholic, me telling him I'm not Christian.. then him being all confused because apparently my name is Christian.. me telling him it's Kristen, not Christian.. and him nodding like he understood the difference when really he didn't. Needles to say I was happy to leave that party.

Oh, and unfortunately I wasn't able to take many pictures during this whole festival.. due to the fact that I didn't want my camera to get soaked. And also, as of today it's only 5 weeks until I'll be back in Canada...