Happy Songkran - Thai New Year 2012

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Can anything really prepare you for Songkran on Khao San Road in the centre of Bangkok's backpacker district? The answer is NO. After spending the morning organising a train to Chang Mai for the following day, we decided we should amp ourselves up and head to Khao San Road and really get amongst it.

The taxi took us as far as it could. We got to within 1km from Khao San and began to navigate our way through swarms of people blanketing us in buckets of ice cold water and smotherings of thick, white clay. I just don't think it's necessary to use iced water, that's all. At one point a man said "Sorrry" as he smeared his two clayed-up hands across my cheeks. Okay, I like New Years - but this was insane! There is no way I could handle 3 days of this, or even 5 days, as it is celebrated in the Northern parts of Thailand.

We had definitely found the famous 'Khao San Road'. It took us the best part of an hour to finally get half way down the street and find a bar that looked very inviting, but far from safe from the water. We figured we would stop and have a drink or 2 and regroup, but as it happens we met a few different people and ended up staying here for the rest of the day.

Mark bought enough Chang's, & myself enough Strawberry Daiquiri's to leave just enough money to persuade a taxi to take us home with his meter.

Tomorrow we are off to brave Chiang Mai and see how it’s done in the North.

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Photos

Time and a Place
Poor guy, not sure how successful he was here

Small world
Running into Jessie and Sammy, who we met on Ko Samet

Live Music
Hard not to get up and dance.