Songkran - Sth East Asian New Year Fete

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Our friends Sandar, Terence and Ohnmar, invited us to the Songkran Asian New Year and Water festival at the Wat Pa Buddharangsee Buddhist Temple at Leumeah. One of the highlights being delicious asian food from Australia, Burma, Cambodia, Lao, Malaysia, Sri-Lanka and Thailand.

Ohnmar, Sandar and their mother were working on the Burmese food stall, raising funds for the new temple that the Burmese community have recently purchased at Smithfield. Lots of interesting cuisine was on offer, including deep fried quail, melon and Sri-Lankan love cake.

Most of the children and many of the adults got into the swing of the Water festival using buckets, tubs, and water pistols to drench anybody who was not on the ball. I got a tub of ice water down my back as did Lorenza, but the person who wet us was very polite about the process and how could we get upset on such a lovely day anyway.

We got some tickets in the "everyones a winner" raffle and for a few dollars won 2 tubs of green curry paste and two packets of tea. You certainly cannot complain about that kind of a raffle! We watched the Thai dancers in their gorgeous silk outfits and took a look at the judging of the festival queen competition. This was followed by the Songkran Parade with participants throwing sweets and lucky coins to the onlookers.

Back at the Burmese food stand Ohnmar made sure we tried most of the food on offer and the crushed ice with cordial and dried fruits. They raised a good amount of money with the food stall and said they would donate half to the Thai temple the festival was held at and take the other half to help pay for renovations of the new property their community has purchased.

It was an interesting afternoon and a cheap way to visit south east Asia with out the cost of the airfare.

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Photos

Happy Songkran
Ohnmar, Terence, Sandar & Lorenza

Burmese entrant
the Burmese entrant in the Festival Queen in lilac or purple

Songkran Parade
The Festival Queen

Songkran Parade
The Sri-Lankan Festival Queen entrant

Comments

[LeGrandBleu]

Really interesting event!

[Annie]

Buremese Entrant 2011 wearing Arakanese style
Love the Burmese dress in this photo...the entrant this year (2011) wore Arakanese (Rakhine) Style, it's wonderful to see democracy at work, really nice to see Arakanese ancient and exotic culture being displayed this year. Here is a Thai site about Arakan: http://www.seasuntour.com/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Id=5353338&Ntype=3... Hope to see more of Burma's diverse ethnic groups being provided with opportunities to exhibit their cultures in this freedom loving country of ours and their identities being acknowledged.