10: Home Sweet Home
15 Apr 2002
Since we were getting a little tired from travelling, we quickly cut short our stay in Egypt to come home to wonderful Thailand. We’ve spent the last week being pampered by my parents, eating and relaxing to our hearts content. Each day, I’m eating enough food for 4 people and taking long naps in the afternoon to get through the heat of the day. Through spectacular planning, we’ve arrived in SE Asia for the hottest possible months. But it’s also mango season here and I get my most absolute favorite dessert – mango and sticky rice. If you haven’t tried it, ask about it next time you go to a Thai restaurant and mangos are in season.
April 13th was the Songkran Festival to celebrate the Thai lunar New Year. It’s a time to gather around family and perform ritual Buddha washings, but also for huge water drenchings of anyone within your range. It’s quite an effective way of cooling off.
Many Bangkokians leave the city for beaches or for the north to Chiang Mai. I’m thankful that the city is somewhat deserted, so the traffic situation is temporarily eased. Josh and I headed to the heart of the old city, near the old backpacker haunt of Khao San Road, which I entered for the first time. My parents dropped us off as close to the action as possible, and as soon as I closed the door of the comfy air-conditioned car, I was soaked by a bucket of water from revelers on a passing pickup truck.
After picking up huge water guns of our own, we roamed the streets around the Grand Palace and the central Sanam Luang public gathering area. The streets were closed to cars and swarming with smiling joyful people, each holding guns or buckets of a clayey-paste substance, some dyed multicolored. Everyone rubs the clay on each others’ faces in a loving caress while wishing “Happy New Year.”
Street vendors are out selling all variety of yummy food. Young girls are up on temporary stages competing in “Miss Songkran” beauty contests. Kids are flying kites. Music is belted out by various singers in stages throughout the streets. And all around, you’re just staging water fights with different groups of people and wiping your face clean of the clay, only to have it continually reapplied. Josh is an especially appealing target being a farang (westerner). I haven’t been home for Songkran for many many years, and all I can say is that Thais really know how to celebrate and be happy.
Only a couple more days in this sanctuary for us before heading into Cambodia.
