WATER FIGHT! Oh, and Happy New Year.

If anyone arrived by plane into Thailand on April 13th, I imagine that those people were first doused with water for the Thai New Year, "Songkran", before the immigration official would even consider stamping their passport. The Thai people here take their water fights very seriously. Especially if it means a barrage of aquatic assaults to a foreigner, "falang".

I had heard varying information on what time the water fighting began, so just to be safe I bought a cheap little water gun at the street market the night before. When I came back to the hostel, the hostel owner laughed hysterically in my face and said it was too small. Way too small. I ignored the blow to my ego, figuring that other people would have big water guns and water balloons, but I could be quicker and more discrete. Someone forgot to tell me that there is no part of discrete in this water fight. 

Fellow travelers posing for the picture while I ruin it with my wet seat of my britches. 

Everyone seemingly tries to one-up each other. Small guns one-up'd by large soakers, large soakers one-up'd by hoses from the tap, the hoses one-up'd by buckets of water, buckets of water one-up'd by buckets of water with ice, water with ice one-up'd by water with paint, water with paint one-up'd by water with paint and ice. Next year, I predict water with bullets, but that's just an educated guess.  

When I finally stepped out of the hostel on Songkran Day around 11PM, water gangs were already on the prowl on the street and riding in the back of pick-up trucks. Two 50 gallon trash buckets were filled to the brim outside my guesthouse to futilely take on the hordes of enemies. One of these 50 gallon trash buckets also came equipped with a five year old kid named Maverick, who despite being generally ineffective at soaking passersby with his pump-action gun, kept exclaiming, "This is the best day in my life." I imagined what he was thinking: a care free five year old surrounded by grown-ups who always make seeming arbitrary rules, and then one day everyone around you forgets the rules for a gi-normous water fight. I'd probably think that is the best day in my life too. 

The water fight and the five year old defending himself from inside the ammo bucket.

After throwing buckets of water at people for about an hour, a squad of four falang, including myself, decided we would get into a truck to take part in the fight from a different vantage. A passing truck slowed down to engage in a brief water fight; we hopped on with no questions asked. The two ~12 year old girls in the bed of the truck smiled at us curiously and on we went. 

The parade of enemy combatants. 

All of us assumed that the truck would circle the block, and upon our return a few minutes later we'd go back to fighting outside the hostel. What actually happened is that over the next three hours the truck took us from Krabi Town to Ao Nang and back again following the parade of thousands of trucks chucking water at anyone within reach of their buckets of water. We hadn't prepared for such a journey. On the ride back I was exhausted from the sun and the fighting, of continually being soaked by cold water and then made colder still by the rush of wind, and the onset of what I knew was going to be an unpleasant sunburn. Despite all that, it was an awesome day and I couldn't have been more happy to have jumped into the back of that truck. 

When the truck pulled over to drop us off at our guesthouse, the parents of the Thai girls got out of the truck to offer us each a container of take-away food (it was picked up on the ride back). They were incredibly nice and despite our best efforts to pay for gasoline, they refused. A friendly wai and a "thank you" was more than enough gratitude for them -- all part of the fun and carefree spirit of the Thai New Years.