Last day of Songkran

Just like everyone said, today the Thais went all out with the water fight. We went to The Flying Dolphins and joined in the fun. There were people in costumes, and the streets were packed with people “playing Songkran”. They load 55 gallon drums into their pick up trucks and drive around town with five or six, (or ten) people in the back splashing everyone they see. They also have baby powder mixed with water to spread on people. On the sidewalk nearly every business has a barrel or tub of water, and the people from the shop battle everyone going by in trucks. I gotta say it’s a lot more fun to get into the game than just be splashed going by (like I’ve been doing the last few days). Iro had a nice big tub of water out in front of Flying Dolphins, with lots of buckets and bowls to throw water with. We spent the whole afternoon there just getting soaked, and goo covered. Everyone was throwing water, or walking up to people and smearing the baby powder mud on them. It’s amazing how most of the time the recipient of the water, or white goo says “thank you” or ‘Happy New Years” after being abused. On the river we always said thank you to the rafters, but that was after we creamed them. Here they voluntarily submit to the baby powder smear. You cant really get away from it. so you just stand there and take it. After a good smearing with the goo, a bucket of water in the face is actually not so bad. Most of the time people are throwing lukewarm water, but you can take it up a notch by making it ice water. Iro had two huge ice blocks ready when I got there, so we were throwing some really cold water. It was nice sunny day, so it was easy to warm up, but the momentary shock was made for a great reaction. As I said in my last post the water fight ends at 6:00, but this year Bhudda took care of that. At about 5:45 it started pouring down rain. Within 5 minutes the rain made a water fight totally irrelevant, and most everyone disappeared. It rained so hard that the asphalt street, that by late afternoon had become a gray white, returned to it’s original color. I took the pictures below with my phone, so the quality isn’t that great. The digital delay made it so I didn’t catch much water in the air, but you get the idea.