Celebrating Songkran In Thailand!
- Karlee
- Apr 20, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 13, 2019
Songkran is a week long celebration that takes place in Thailand and other surrounding Buddhist countries. It starts every April 12th for the Thai New Year, and then follows with a week long water festival. The water festival is a very spiritual and cultural experience everyone should get to enjoy once in their lives! Everyone in Thailand young and old, tourists and all have a friendly water fight nationwide. By a nationwide water fight i mean that streets close down and literal buckets of water and hoses are used to soak anyone and everyone. Water guns of all sizes are sold throughout Thailand, so the water fight is fair game! Songkran comes just in time because April in one of the hottest months in Thailand!
We spent Songkran water festival in Bangkok, Thailand the countries capitol. The festival goes on all over the city but there are some areas that will be wilder than others. Silom road, Khoason road, and Thong Lo district all have roads blocked off with non-stop water fights. The streets are filled with people with water guns of all sizes, buckets of ice water, and hoses. The locals sell ice water for only 10 baht to refill your water guns with! Watch your back for groups of people and friends who will ambush you and drench you and your group! The smiles, and laughs are endless. It is so amazing to see everyone smiling from ear to ear acting like kids running around and soaking each other. If you are worried about your personal items getting wet, they sell inexpensive plastic cases to keep your stuff dry. The holiday is an extremely positive and safe experience. If you are looking for a younger rowdy crowd, with packed streets and bars check out khoason road. It was crazy, the short street was so busy it took almost two hours to walk through while dodging water guns and buckets of water. Songkran Thai New Year was on my bucket list and I am so thankful I got to experience it with a great group of people!
I wouldn’t plan on participating or visiting Thailand during Songkran if you are not okay with getting wet or squirted with water randomly, also if you are expecting a lot of places to be open. A lot of local owned restaurants, shops, and stores close down during Songkran week to go back home to the islands or where they are from to be with family.
Locals getting soaked in the various streets of Bangkok. Photos by Sawyer Mahoney.
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