Bangkok Day 2

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The world's biggest wet t-shirt party

(The third and final night of Songkran)

The plan was grab some food before joining in with the festivities. Figured, pop into a cafe that we knew for some essential fuel, about 1/2 a mile down the road.

So much for plans! To say we weren't quite prepared for what would meet us just outside the hotel is something of an understatement. Within no more than 200 metres of the hotel gates, we are well and truly brought up to speed with the new year's rituals of this water festival. At 201 metres, we couldn't have been much wetter, having had buckets of water tipped down us both.

The closer we got to Khao San Road, the streets were being taken over by literally thousands of revellers, with parties in every shop front, petrol station and street corner. The carnival atmosphere included live music on the street, lots of dancing and hose pipes/water pistols galore. And we'd not yet got to the busy part...

By the time we got to the adjacent street to Khao San Road it was a blur of people, all soaking wet and covered in some sort of paste/paint. This paint is joyfully smeared across the faces or bodies of strangers by the locals, and we were plastered in it.

It was so busy, we were literally carried up the road in a wave of people. Making our way between bars was near impossible, as you essentially went where the crowd was going. Being stuck in the middle of the street, wedged between so many people, we were sitting ducks for the snipers and hosers at the sides of the road. This isn't bad though - the whole experience was made bearable by the girls dancing on tables at the sides of the roads, lots of loud music and the genuinely friendly nature of everyone involved.

After a couple of hours of madness, we saw an opportunity to duck out of the crowd and head for the Roof bar, stopping only to wring out our sodden t-shirts (and getting soaked further at the same time). Once in the bar, which was unusually quiet with all of the activities in the street, we were greeted by many a bedraggled westerner in various states of dishevelment.

We spent what was left of the night meeting various people from around the globe, observing the remainder of the festival below us. Passing the Hippie Bar later, we thought we'd pop in for a quite beer - so did a couple of hundred others! We finally got back in the early hours, awaiting the onslaught of a deserved hangover.

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