The Flying Martinis are now the Songkran rejects
Songkran (Thai New Year) Madness on the Khao San RoadThe Thais know how to celebrate New year, they really do. Unfortunately their method of celebration is one that we probably couldn’t adopt on the 1st January in Scotland as it involves throwing vast amount of cold water at people. Don’t fancy that much in Aberdeen. But in steaming hot Bangkok it works just fine. And it gives great vent to the very playful nature of the Thais.
Songkran- High-grade pneumatic waterpistol essential
The Thai New Year or “Songkran”, is celebrated mid April. We asked what year it was and got about 10 different replies, probably because we weren’t making ourselves understood, not because Thai people weren’t sure. I’m still not sure- if someone can tell me for sure I’ll be grateful. No use not knowing what year it is….
Thailand actually celebrates 3 different New Years each year which pretty much cements my emerging view that the Thais are the most fun people in the world. Why haven’t the Scots thought of that?
The Thais celebrate New Year on the 31st of December, then there is the Chinese Lunar New Year that takes normally place in February and there is the Thai New Year which is in April each year. We should MOVE New year to July and call it Scottish New Year as it will be much better, and you wouldn’t have to freeze your ass off every year going from party to party with your carry out. Take this as an official “Let’s move New Year” campaign launch.
I digress. This is how the Thais do new Year (Songkran). They get buckets of water, high powered pump action water pistols, anything that will be able to soak passers by. Then they let rip. We don’t have a great deal of photos of the utter full on madness of the Friday night as John was worried about his camera. But here they are anyway. They don’t even half represent the utter madness of people unleashing water-fight hell on the Khao San Road.
Moving vehicle an optional extra
On the Friday night, not knowing much about the reality of Songkran, we headed out to the Khaosan Road to buy presents. What a couple for chumps. Khao San Road, normally shopping mecca was packed full of Bangkok’s teenagers and young people, armed with gallons of iced water, flour paste and hosepipes. It was great at first but the kids were frightened. Eve was on John’s shoulders and the Thais made a beeline for her, pelting her with water and covering her cheeks on flour paste. She started to cry, and this only attracted more Thai teenagers to her, thinking that another dousing and pasting would help her out. She started wailing, “This is a nasty place! I don’t like it”.
Mum having a laugh; Eve having a cry…
Louis didn’t like it either. Normally he would be right into a water fight but he was completely overwhelmed and crucially, unarmed. Had we known, we would have bought him a water pistol, but by the time we made it through to the centre of the madness, the kids had had enough and we had to take them home. Louis lashed out at a guy who put just a little too much flour paste on his face, with a little too much force, ignoring Louis sense of humour failure.
Songkran looked great too. But an early Flying Martini exit was essential. So we head back through the masses and get spat out the other side of Khao San Road, a lot whiter and wetter than when we got there.
Time to find a tuc tuc that’s brave enough to take us through the hail of flour and water fire back to the Davis (where they probably won’t let us back in….)
This is us back at the hotel after finding a tuc tuc and being a moving target for flour and water.
Tomorrow: we come prepared….
The Flying Martinis are now the Songkran rejects
Songkran (Thai New Year) Madness on the Khao San RoadThe Thais know how to celebrate New year, they really do. Unfortunately their method of celebration is one that we probably couldn’t adopt on the 1st January in Scotland as it involves throwing vast amount of cold water at people. Don’t fancy that much in Aberdeen. But in steaming hot Bangkok it works just fine. And it gives great vent to the very playful nature of the Thais.
Songkran- High-grade pneumatic waterpistol essential
The Thai New Year or “Songkran”, is celebrated mid April. We asked what year it was and got about 10 different replies, probably because we weren’t making ourselves understood, not because Thai people weren’t sure. I’m still not sure- if someone can tell me for sure I’ll be grateful. No use not knowing what year it is….
Thailand actually celebrates 3 different New Years each year which pretty much cements my emerging view that the Thais are the most fun people in the world. Why haven’t the Scots thought of that?
The Thais celebrate New Year on the 31st of December, then there is the Chinese Lunar New Year that takes normally place in February and there is the Thai New Year which is in April each year. We should MOVE New year to July and call it Scottish New Year as it will be much better, and you wouldn’t have to freeze your ass off every year going from party to party with your carry out. Take this as an official “Let’s move New Year” campaign launch.
I digress. This is how the Thais do new Year (Songkran). They get buckets of water, high powered pump action water pistols, anything that will be able to soak passers by. Then they let rip. We don’t have a great deal of photos of the utter full on madness of the Friday night as John was worried about his camera. But here they are anyway. They don’t even half represent the utter madness of people unleashing water-fight hell on the Khao San Road.
Moving vehicle an optional extra
On the Friday night, not knowing much about the reality of Songkran, we headed out to the Khaosan Road to buy presents. What a couple for chumps. Khao San Road, normally shopping mecca was packed full of Bangkok’s teenagers and young people, armed with gallons of iced water, flour paste and hosepipes. It was great at first but the kids were frightened. Eve was on John’s shoulders and the Thais made a beeline for her, pelting her with water and covering her cheeks on flour paste. She started to cry, and this only attracted more Thai teenagers to her, thinking that another dousing and pasting would help her out. She started wailing, “This is a nasty place! I don’t like it”.
Mum having a laugh; Eve having a cry…
Louis didn’t like it either. Normally he would be right into a water fight but he was completely overwhelmed and crucially, unarmed. Had we known, we would have bought him a water pistol, but by the time we made it through to the centre of the madness, the kids had had enough and we had to take them home. Louis lashed out at a guy who put just a little too much flour paste on his face, with a little too much force, ignoring Louis sense of humour failure.
Songkran looked great too. But an early Flying Martini exit was essential. So we head back through the masses and get spat out the other side of Khao San Road, a lot whiter and wetter than when we got there.
Time to find a tuc tuc that’s brave enough to take us through the hail of flour and water fire back to the Davis (where they probably won’t let us back in….)
This is us back at the hotel after finding a tuc tuc and being a moving target for flour and water.
Tomorrow: we come prepared….
The Swiss Family Martin
The war aspect of Kanchanaburi is everywhere, and I suspect that the bridge and the railway are the reason why a lot of Europeans come here. However the area surrounding Kanchanaburi is also a national park and has some amazing scenery and areas of natural beauty.
We’re not normally ones for organised trips but we went on a cracker of one on day two of our stay here. First of to Erawan National Park with it’s seven waterfalls.
The Erawan park rangers have cottoned on to something- tourists leave rubbish. I have ranted about this in the past. So you are only allowed to take drinking water into the park, and you must check in your bottles, sign for them and leave a deposit. Each bottle is numbered, so they can check discarded bottles against names, and presumably find you wherever you are hiding and then beat you to death with them.
We are told by our guide Mu Mu, an extremely confident but fast and impenetrable English speaker, that we are welcome to swim in the pools of Erawan and that the little fish will give you a firm Thai massage. In actual fact, the buggers bite you, constantly and are not afraid of splashing or shrieking, despite my efforts to frighten them off.
I adopt the technique of swimming like a Olympic champion to outrun the little beasts but they are everywhere and to be frank, they are not little. It seems weird that the other day I was snorkelling in amongst the beautiful Koh Phi Phi Nemos and trying to touch them, but now I am frantically swatting away the biting brown leviathans of Erawan and shrieking like a girl.
Anyway here’s a pic of what I suspect is Louis’s highlight of his holiday…sliding down a natural rock flume like a good ‘un.
Safe to say eve didn’t go in any of the pools and whined the whole time, asking where lunch was and wanting to go home. She likes a good dash of ceramic tile and chlorine with her swimming water.
Next up, we go for a walk with some elephants. Here we are with Bunta (22 years old) and Seesaw.
Will work for bananas.
Unlike our previous Elephant walk on our Sri Lanka trip we were able to send some time with our Elephants afterwards. Here’s me speaking to Bunta and apologising for running out of bananas and making her walk in the hot sun.
And we saw one of the babies, who snotted all over my white trousers and rooted about my person for anything edible.
Our mahout was a cheeky one too. He ate two of the bananas meant for the elephant.
Next up we went rafting which was fantastic.(No pics, unfortunately.) With life jackets on, Mum, if you’re reading… Louis and John jumped off the the raft and swam most of the way downstream. John in River swimming shocker. See, I told you it was a ll a bluff..he was like flipping Tarzan. And I went in fully clothed but hung onto then raft so that I could be in earshot of Eve’s whining lunch enquriry and pleading to go home.
One of the other rafts had an unwelcome visitor in the form of a water snake. A deadly water snake. We might not have been so keen to jump in the River had we known. Yikes!
The Swiss Family Martin
The war aspect of Kanchanaburi is everywhere, and I suspect that the bridge and the railway are the reason why a lot of Europeans come here. However the area surrounding Kanchanaburi is also a national park and has some amazing scenery and areas of natural beauty.
We’re not normally ones for organised trips but we went on a cracker of one on day two of our stay here. First of to Erawan National Park with it’s seven waterfalls.
The Erawan park rangers have cottoned on to something- tourists leave rubbish. I have ranted about this in the past. So you are only allowed to take drinking water into the park, and you must check in your bottles, sign for them and leave a deposit. Each bottle is numbered, so they can check discarded bottles against names, and presumably find you wherever you are hiding and then beat you to death with them.
We are told by our guide Mu Mu, an extremely confident but fast and impenetrable English speaker, that we are welcome to swim in the pools of Erawan and that the little fish will give you a firm Thai massage. In actual fact, the buggers bite you, constantly and are not afraid of splashing or shrieking, despite my efforts to frighten them off.
I adopt the technique of swimming like a Olympic champion to outrun the little beasts but they are everywhere and to be frank, they are not little. It seems weird that the other day I was snorkelling in amongst the beautiful Koh Phi Phi Nemos and trying to touch them, but now I am frantically swatting away the biting brown leviathans of Erawan and shrieking like a girl.
Anyway here’s a pic of what I suspect is Louis’s highlight of his holiday…sliding down a natural rock flume like a good ‘un.
Safe to say eve didn’t go in any of the pools and whined the whole time, asking where lunch was and wanting to go home. She likes a good dash of ceramic tile and chlorine with her swimming water.
Next up, we go for a walk with some elephants. Here we are with Bunta (22 years old) and Seesaw.
Will work for bananas.
Unlike our previous Elephant walk on our Sri Lanka trip we were able to send some time with our Elephants afterwards. Here’s me speaking to Bunta and apologising for running out of bananas and making her walk in the hot sun.
And we saw one of the babies, who snotted all over my white trousers and rooted about my person for anything edible.
Our mahout was a cheeky one too. He ate two of the bananas meant for the elephant.
Next up we went rafting which was fantastic.(No pics, unfortunately.) With life jackets on, Mum, if you’re reading… Louis and John jumped off the the raft and swam most of the way downstream. John in River swimming shocker. See, I told you it was a ll a bluff..he was like flipping Tarzan. And I went in fully clothed but hung onto then raft so that I could be in earshot of Eve’s whining lunch enquriry and pleading to go home.
One of the other rafts had an unwelcome visitor in the form of a water snake. A deadly water snake. We might not have been so keen to jump in the River had we known. Yikes!
