Team SONGKRUNK

YaY Songkran! haha Songkran is quite possibly the best holiday ever. It's the Thai New Year that lasts three days long. The first day is a celebration for the last day of the year, the second day is a transition day, and the last day is a celebration for the first day of the new year, which is Thailand is 2552. People splash water on another for cleanliness and I think something to do with bringing in the rainy season. Nowadays though, it's basically a reason for everybody to throw buckets of water at anybody and anything.

To celebrate Songkran, a bunch of languagecorps peoples (I think 18 of us from all over Thailand and Vietnam...) got together and went to Chiang Mai. Our celebration started a couple days beforehand when everybody met in Bangkok at me, Tricia's, Ryan's, and James'. We made team t-shirts by painting them with the Thai flag colors (red, white, and blue) and then went out that night to Khaosan (backpacker's area). The next day we slept in and had a pool party complete with pizza before making our way to the train station to catch our overnight bus.

The train station was a mess because all the trains had been cancelled because of the protests. Speaking of the protests (which are over now), nobody worry because I certainly wasn't worrying and wasn't effected in any way. Luckily for us, we procrastinated a little bit and got stuck with bus tickets instead of train tickets and were still able to travel. Yay. We arrived in Chiang Mai about 7 o'clock the next morning and were all extremely tired. The hostel that we stayed at was a converted house and nobody was up yet, so we all took short naps outside until we were able to check in.

When we got settled in, the manager of the hostel, Noom, took us to his village in the back of a pick up truck. On the way there we splashed people on the road and on the side of the street. When we got there, we watched them make a Thai dessert that I had never heard of before called karame. It was brown sugar, cashews, and sticky rice roll things all put together in a giant wok. It didn't look all that appetizing, but it was delicious. We were given free food (pig's blood... I tried it- it was okay, but it freaked me out being pig's blood and all and couldn't actually get myself a bowl... haha), Thai whiskey that they brewed themselves, and the dessert. Noom sat and explained some about Songkran and the protestors. Most of our group got distracted and ended up water fighting with each other and local village children. We headed back and went to Mike's, a restaurant with burgers and chili- something that you can't find in Bangkok. Most of the group ate there for most of their meals. haha

The next day was all about the water fighting. In the morning, Noom provided a Chang (a Thai beer) happy hour. Then we were off to a foam party at a mall near the moat that surrounds the center of the city... none of us made it to the foam party. We walked there and we were having way to much fun dancing in the streets and splashing people to go to a foam party. The streets were packed with people having a good time and were lined with stalls selling buckets of ice water, water guns, water blasting rods, and beer. I was actually dunked into a trash can full of water and had a bag of ice poured down my back. Then our group hijacked a trucked. We saw an empty truck and thought it would be a good idea to all get in the back of it to throw more water at people. The driver was a great sport and thought it was hilarious that a group of farangs would do such a thing. He helped us retrive barrels of nasty moat water into the back of the truck, passed out a box of KFC, and passsed around a bottle of whiskey. The boys in our group kept jumping back into the nasty moat water to fill up our barrels. The moat was absolutely disgusting (Thom actually found leeches on him afterwards...) and needless to say, most of us are recovering from injuries and illnesses, (I got pinkeye... AGAIN) but I don't think any of us have ever had more fun! haha

The next day, we were all very very tired. Most of us went and found some curry for lunch and then either watched or participated in sitting outside of Mike's (the staff loved us) splashing water on passerbys. To demonstrate that this holiday is for everyone- the cutest Thai family was across the street from us doing the same thing. The youngest looked like she was about 3 or 4 years old. We were pretty calm and subdued that day, but nobody could go anywhere without getting wet and laughing about it.

Most people either left that night or early the next morning, but I hung around for a couple days afterward to recover and see a little bit of the city. I'm gonna have to blog about that later though, because right now I need to go buy a new phone and possibly new camera. They both drowned in all the fun. More about Chiang Mai later!