Songkhran may be the most anticipate event of the year in Thailand. It might be described as part holiday, part festival and all party.
Though commonly known as the "water festival" is is the ancient Thai New Year. Officially it is April 13, 14 and 15, but depending on the region, the celebration may las for as long as two weeks.
Younger family members will seek out elders and pour water across their hands as they ask for blessings. They will make merit my giving food to monks, offering new robes to them, bathing Buddha statues, releasing birds and fish, and laying sand stupas.
Younger people often engage in a more rigorous social activity by playfully splashing water on each other. This is also an acceptable form of flirtation between boys and girls.
Westerners traveling to Thailand don't always delve into the true culture behind festivals and often engage in, what seems to them, simply a great deal of fun. But too often the westerner escalates the level of play to the point of rudeness and beyond. Songkhran is one of those holidays where this has happened.
Powerful water cannons, buckets of water and ice, chunks of ice, and water filled balloons are often shot or hurled at and from vehicles. Numerous injuries and property damage has resulted and there is now a movement by the Thai government to regulate the vigor of the water throwing.
