Teacher Pook at the AUA Songkran Festival

I have anticipated the Songkran New Year's Festival ever since I first started studying about Thailand. It is one of the most exciting holidays of the year. The celebrations include many activities including games, visits to the temples, a ceremony with water, and water fights. My first taste of the festivities took place at my language school where my teachers comically recounted the events of a family's Songkran Holiday. Several of my teachers performed Thai dances and even did a show Thai boxing match.



Students at the Festival


Teachers Performing Traditional Thai Dance

Of course, the school festival only began the interesting experiences I had during this year's Songkran. On Friday, one of my students invited me to join her on a trip to visit "The 9 Wats." The Thai believe they will have special luck if they visit all 9 of the most important temples in Bangkok in one day. So we set out to conquer the task, and the heat, crowds, and starvation finally conqured us. We made it to 5 of the 9 before we called it quits. We still had plans to make it to Khao San road for the city wide water fight. Just picture the road so full of people and water and squirt guns that you can hardly move. Imagine your clothes soaked through as the sun starts setting and you actually begin to shiver. Imagine hundreds of people smearing white paste on your face and telling you "Happy New Year!" It's amazing and fun and very exhausting.