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Published: April 11th 2007
Buckets for sale
Buckets were far more effective than water pistols... Arrived in Chiang Mai in time for the beginning of Songkram...the crazy celebration of Thai New Year which involves seven days of water fighting! Found a lovely Guest House to stay at which was not charging special Songkram prices... Asia Guest House...highly recommended as a nice place to stay and feel at home.
Luckily we found a nice place to stay as Kirstyn quickly developed a very unwelcome stomach bug that rendered her house bound (or tiolet bound) for the next three days! Jason did a great job of running to 7-11 to get water and stock up on electrolytes! Found a great pharmacist around the corner who was very helpful and also helped us to stock up on malaria tablets for Lao and Cambodia.
We did manage to brave Songkram for a few short stints. Riding around on a bike with people throwing buckets of water at you can be challenging...best to slow down and let the people poor water over you than cop a bucket in the chest!
The Songkram Festival is lots of fun and the moat around the centre of Chiang Mai is lined with people armed with buckets and water pistols. Most
Songkram parade
You guessed it...throw water on Buddha for good luck of the water thrown was nice and warm from the moat (but maybe not so healthy!) but every now and then if you were unlucky you would come across a group of people who had added ice to their buckets...we got very cold quickly. It was hard to capture on camera due to the amount of water flying around! The general feeling over here at the moment is one of festivity and family...slightly reminiscent of New Years and Christmas time back home but on a much larger scale.
Visited the Chiang Mai night bizarre which seemed to be a lot of "same same but different" artifacts and major clothing brand rip-offs...much preferred the street markets near our guest house with lots of Hill Tribe people selling their crafts. No purchases though as our packs are starting to feel a bit heavy.
With Kirstyn having to spend most of the time lying flat and very still we were able to spend a bit of time reading and planning our next moves (and finally setting up this blog site!). A nice change from being on the move all the time but we are now ready to get going again.
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