Songkran is finally over. It is officially celebrated from April 13-15, but Bangrakam starts the celebration on April 12th with building sandcastles and ending on April 17th by bathing the monks in scented water. Singing, dancing, competitions, and of course, water fights fill in the gaps between these two events.
Tuesday:
I left work in the early afternoon with my Balot to go to lunch. Instead of seeking out a restaurant, he took me to our local Wat. There I not only discovered a large pile of sand, but there were 8 sandcastles being created; one for each community in my village, and 1 for the wat itself. It was amazing to see how great these sandcastles looked. Professionals were not brought in from outside to help create these. All I can say is that the people of my Tambon are very talented.
I came back later in the evening to help kick off the celebration of the celebration of Songkran. I have the pleasure of having a status high enough in the community that I get to stand up in front of everyone and have myself introduced during every community event, but a low enough status to where I don’t have to speak (some of the time). So, of course, I got up on stage, wearing my brand new pink flowered shirt and wai’ed to the crowd when I was introduced as a volunteer for the community.
Afterwards, I got a chance to walk around and check out the activities. Monks were handing out bucketfuls of sand to individuals and families. Families were building there out sandcastles as a tribute to their ancestors. They could purchase flowers, incense, candles, and more to help decorate. I didn’t know that my Wat had novice monks until this point. A Wat can have children be ordained as novice monks. They don’t have as many rules to follow as normal monks, but they live at the Wat and get an education there as well. These children often can get a better education than most children in their village depending on the area that they live in.
Of course, following the sandcastle competition, there was a singing competition. And, as in all competitions, there are those that are good, and those that, well…are not. The 7 year old boy was excellent. Everyone was amazed at the voice that he was able to project. My Nayoke, on the other hand, made me think of my old pastor from high school. This is not to say that my old pastor couldn’t hold a key (where my Nayoke can’t), but he had a very unique voice. My pastor would insist on doing a solo for the congregation every once in a while, and I would always hope that I was not in church on those days. It took everything in me to not burst out laughing every time I heard him sing. He sounded just like Kermit the Frog…EXACTLY! I wonder if he ever did any voice over’s for him? Anyways, the person I was sitting next to asked me if I thought my Nayoke had a good voice. At this point, I didn’t think so, but since he was singing in Thai, I was hoping that maybe there was just something I was missing, so I just shrugged…and then asked her what she thought. She tentatively nodded her head yes, said yes, but rolled her eyes and made a slight face….this is the Thai way of saying “no”. We both started laughing as soon as she realized that I understood what she meant. Ah, the small glories of me being able to understand the indirectness of the Thai people.
Wednesday
It was pouring. I thought the rain, lightning, and thunder were awesome in Thailand before, but nothing compared to this. Sheets of rain pounded the tin roof for hours starting in the early morning. Streaks of lightning snuck through my closed windows lighting up my ceiling. I could hear the thunder rolling toward me before it finally crashed into the house shaking it profusely. Rolling thunder…love it. The house starts hum with vibrations when you hear the thunder rolling down the road toward you. As it passes house after house, the hum turns into a dull roar. Vibrations turn to shaking, and the dull roar becomes deafening as the thunder strikes your house sending a small earthquake type shake through it. AMAZINING!
We weren’t sure if the rain was going to stop. It started at about 3 in the morning and at 11 am it still had not let up. My Ron Nayoke, Muay, and I were supposed to make our way to Phitsanulok today so I could check out the big water fight of the region. So, of course, what did I do? I opened up all of the windows on the top floor of my house and listened to the rain and thunder as I read a book (Thanks for the recommendations Denise!). Loved it. I almost hoped that I could do this all day, but alas, at 1pm, the rain and thunder disappeared, the sun reappeared, and you could here children already hitting the streets with buckets and squirt guns. Muay called me and said we were going. I packed my purse with my phone and camera wrapped in a plastic bag and headed out. Muay surprised me with a squirt gun for me and when we reached town I found out why. People were EVERYWHERE. Water guns, buckets, hoses, fountains, everything that you could think of. It was chaos.
We got out of the car and I was immediately assaulted by people yelling “farang, farang!!” and being doused in buckets of water. As we walked down the street, I quickly discovered that I was at a disadvantage. Not only did Muay not have a water gun, but she was also Thai. I was a foreigner (always an amusement), and I had the squirt gun…who were people going to be aiming for…me. Everyone wants to be able to say that they hit the farang. Within minutes I was soaking wet. It was crazy. Muay was loving it…she kept coaxing people to hit me instead of her.
They also have this paste, comes in all sorts of colors, that people rub on your face during Songkran. I’m not sure what it is. Sometimes it is talcum powder mixed with water, but, most of the time, it just seemed like people wanted to paint your face. I think there is some kind of symbolism behind it, but I think that might be lost to the younger generation that just like to soak people and paint peoples faced. By the time I left the streets, I think I had white, red, green, and blue all over my face. I wish I was able to take more pictures, but I was so scared of my camera getting wet in all the water fights going on.
All in all, super good day (especially since it ended in me getting pizza)
Thursday
Nice and relaxing. I woke up early to go to a monk ordination. This was different than most I have gone to because usually I meet up with it during the dancing in the streets, drinking, and eating period. This time, they let me into the temple and actually watch as the monks ordained the new monk. It was a great experience and I never tire of hearing monks chant. I think it sounds amazing. After he was ordained, we all gave merit to him by putting money in his new “monk bag”. We couldn’t touch him, being woman, so you had to be very careful as he passed that you didn’t brush against him as you were giving him merit.
The rest of the day was chilling in my room (yes the A/C was on ALL day) and reading some books.
Friday
Friday was non-eventful for the most part. I got to chill at home most of the day. I went out biking for a little while and enjoyed dodging the kids with buckets flinging water at me. We laughed at each other, I let them get me once in a while, but I was able to make it back to my house without being soaked. *Score*
In the evening, my host family took me back to Phitsanulok. They showed me the night market there. It is definitely impressive. Booth after booth line the road next to the river. One side of the street is merchandise; the other side holds all different types of food. I will definitely be going back there to check it out.
After leaving the market, we hit the streets to head back to where all the water fights have been going on. This is the final night of Songkran for Phitsanulok, so we wanted to check it out. It was still as wild and crazy as I remember it, but even more so, because since it had gotten dark, more drinking was going on, music was louder, and most of the people still in the streets were the younger crowd. At one point, masses of people suddenly came running toward me screaming. As this was happening (and I was moving out of there way), police began descending upon the crowd. A fight had broken out and some amateur muay Thai was being practiced. My host family decided to not stick around and see the results of this altercation and instead, for the second time this week, we went and picked me up some PIZZA!!! What a great day!
Saturday
This was a usual Saturday. It was nice and relaxing.
Sunday
I woke up and forgot I was supposed to meet with my Nayoke and Ron Nayoke to give the elderly in the community a gift. When I got the call, I quickly put my pink flowered shirt on and headed out the door. What I didn’t realize, is that this was going to be an all day event. First, I was in a parade. Of course, I was the only person from the Tessaban in a pink shirt (it was purple day) because we couldn’t find the right size purple shirt for me. I wish that I had gotten to watch more of the parade, but since I was in it, it was not possible. Needless to say, I was soaking wet by the end of it because people still had there hoses and buckets out waiting for us.
The funniest part of the parade was that they didn’t take into account how low down the power lines hang when they created one of the floats. The float ran into about 7 lines at once and from then on, a guy had to run ahead of the float and lift the lines before the float passed. They don’t worry about electrocution here as much as in the US; they seemed perfectly fine not using any sort of protection as they handled the electrical wires.
Halfway through the parade, we stopped at my favorite local lake. We paid tribute (to something) by releasing 50,000 fish into the lake. We each got a bag full of a few hundred fish and we dumped the bags in one-by-one before continuing on with the parade.
The parade ended at the Wat where we ate some food, watched some singing and dancing, danced ourselves (because who doesn’t get a kick out of the farang dancing) and then of course, went up on stage and had ourselves introduced again. I’m pretty sure it is an honor to be introduced at every event, but I would rather just sit in the crowd…I think everyone knows who I am now; I stick out a little bit.
About half way through the day, I was given a bucket with scented water and flowers in it. The elderly of the community were sitting in lines of chairs set up. As a sign of respect to the elders in the community, we poured water over their shoulders and hands, “bathing” them. I think this was my favorite part of Songkran in the respect to the tradition of it. I think that the elderly are discounted too often in all communities and not respected as they should be. They may be old, old-fashioned, and maybe limited in their abilities, but they hold a wealth of knowledge that the younger generation cannot even imagine to have.
Later one, we do the same thing to the monks of the Wat. This is when the real water fight begins. The fire truck had been at the Wat all day dispensing water through the fire hose (which every once in a while someone gets a hold of and sprays the crowd), but when we all line up to bath the monks, someone gets atop the fire truck and proceeds to turn on the hose up there and sprays the crowd. This is some hard core water coming out at us. It’s at this point that everyone starts dumping water over every person that they can see; children and adults alike. Everyone is soaking wet and covered in scented water and flowers.
After this, I go home, discover I am sun burnt from my hours in the sun (I thought I would be home by late morning) and am ready for bed. I think I was asleep by 8pm.
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