Songkran / Soak-kran

For Thais the new year celebrations is blended with water, the symbol of renewal and cleansing. Water symbolizes purifying, refreshment of the spirit and all good things associated with life. As such, one of the main things to do when offering a New Year blessings, which is also a Buddhist merit-making activity, is the splashing of water. The original idea was to sprinkle scented water from silver bowls at home and at temples for the cleansing of your Buddha images and by younger people on older people as a tribute of respect and for blessings.

These days, however, it has developed into a way more wild wanton war of water as water tossing has taken to the streets and the throwing of large amounts of water (preferably very cold ice water which makes people scream) has become the epitome of the Songkran festivities.

Trucks full of people head down the streets tossing large amounts of water back and forth to other vehicles and people along the sides of the streets. We took our wealth of water war weaponry to the highway and exchanged bucketful after bucketful of blessings with passing well wishers.