Songran Water Festival in Thailand

This week we celebrated the national Buddhist holiday of Songkran. Every year from April 13-15th this holiday is celebrated and all shops and businesses (with the exception of family run restaurants and hotels) close down and Thais travel home to be with their families. 

If you want to learn more about the meaning behind the holiday you can click here , but if you just want to hear the brief version it's basically a giant country-wide water fight where everyone from the little children to the grandparents are participating.

You can't go out anywhere on your motorbike or walking without coming home drenched. We walked to the market yesterday and had about 8 buckets of water poured on our heads and powder poured over our faces by strangers. There is lots of drinking, karaoke, and fireworks going off during this time and everywhere you go it seems like people are smiling. We went into Chiang Rai and played in town for about 7 hours on the first day, and about five hours yesterday where we live. The chilling part is that people buy huge chunks of ice to put in the water they are throwing (as we did as well), so you are being dosed with FREEZING cold water!!!! Rusty went out today for a third time with some of the kids from the hostel, and I chose to stay home and rest with Libby and Ghan with my earache and sunburned face :>).

Thais are usually shy to use their english, but with all the alcohol involved in this festival its been funny to hear all the random english phrases people yell at us in their drunken state such as..."What is MY name?" "I love you baby"  "Made in Thailand" "Sing a song!" "YOu want whiskey? Have a litteln!" "You are lovely" "Where you go?" "What is your name?" "My name is _______".

Panic!!!

I loved all the comments to the last post about the poop hurling at the wedding and I will ask Luka tonight to figure out the significance of it.

On the same note, this morning Libby and I thought we would be adventurous and leave the house early in attempt to walk to Chiang Rai for Thai lessons. Normally we take the motorbike which takes about 30 minutes, or we will ride bicycles which takes 50 minutes or so. Well, we hadn't even walked 1/4 the way and had already taken 1 hour of our time with my legs tired and Libby getting blisters on her heels. We had five different trucks stop and ask us if we were ok and if we needed a ride. When we told them we were planning on walking into town they all started laughing with us and then continued on their way.

Then I had a serious case of explosive diarrhea hit me and I started to panic. I looked at Libby and nervously said, "Libby, I am going to poop my pants!!!" There was nowhere to go to the toilet near us so she yelled,"Well at least pull your pants down and go in the ditch!" I panicked at the thought of one of our friends driving by and seeing me pooping on the side of the road and started running towards the nearest house. There were three sweet Thai ladies sitting outside RIGHT next to the outdoor toilet who graciously allowed me to use their toilet as they chuckled under their breath. I asked Libby to talk with them loudly to distract them from my noises, then had the joy of wiping with only my hand and water. When I came out of the bathroom I explained the situation to them and thanked them. Lovely.

Luckily soon thereafter Rusty rode by and shuttled us the rest of the way into town in time for our lessons.

What a funny morning. We decided next time we need to bring toilet paper along and give ourselves a good 5 hours to walk into town. So that means leaving around 4 am? Probably not going to happen.