Songkran is the Traditional Thai New Year Celebrated for 3 days surrounding April 13th every year. The common ritual that is performed on these festive days is pouring water to represent purification by washing away one’s sins. This tradition has escalated into the world’s largest water gun fight, a fight we had to be a part of!
For 3 days, every man, women, and child of all ages and demographics join together in one of the craziest scenes we have ever witnessed. On the days leading up to this celebration, all street vendors convert their normal operations into water gun arsenals so everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. During the thick of the excitement, you can find young kids charging participants a few cents to refill their guns while they man the massive refill buckets off to the side of the road. Everyone is wearing waterproof bags or sachels to protect their phones and personal belongs because everyone and everything is completely soaked.
Where to Celebrate:
We were able to celebrate in both Bangkok and Chang Mai. Each city celebrated heavily and each city celebrated slightly differently. Looking back on this event, we realized we spent more time enjoying the moment and taking videos than getting many photos. For fun action footage you can check out this video montage outlining the Thailand trip here.
Bangkok
Within Bangkok, two major locations are far and away the places to be for the celebration. The remaining parts of town are not as crazy or hectic and I’m sure you can find pockets to stay dry if needed.
Silom Road
Before booking our hostel, we had no idea where the celebration occurred. To our pleasant surprise, our hostel was a few yards off Silom Road so we were able to walk outside and join the fight.
Silom Road is a major road within the city, and they completely shut it down to all traffic so it can become one big water gunfight. On both sides of the street, foot traffic progresses as people walk and talk and shoot every stranger in sight. Some people camp out in the median so they can attack both sides at the risk of being blindsided from behind. The Sky Train covers a large portion of the street so you also have to watch out for a bucket of water to be dropped on top of you at any moment. On Silom Road there are many young kids, older parents, and even adventurous grandparents; this location makes for a family fun environment.
Khao San Road
After spending a few hours in the morning and early afternoon on Silom Road, we made our way across town to Khao San Road. After weaving our way through alleys we finally arrived to complete chaos. Where we thought Silom Road was crowded and crazy, Khao San put it to shame. The narrow road, mainly meant for foot traffic, was completely shoulder to shoulder. On each side of the road there were pubs with people drinking, dancing, and shooting the mosh pit of people barely moving through the street. If you are tall, you become an easy target for those sniping the crowd from the comfort of the pubs. Music was blaring from large speakers throughout the street and we had truly arrived at the party. We got inside a pub to grab a beer and people-watch while not dealing with the crowd (This photos is the view from inside that pub). Overall, this location is meant for the young adult crowd looking to add to the party.
Chang Mai
We flew to Chang Mai in the late morning and landed around 2 pm. We quickly realized that being a smaller city immediately provided a different experience than Songkran in Bangkok. Instead of a few key areas around town that were going all out, the entire city of Chang Mai was celebrating. Once we were within a mile of downtown, traffic became a parking lot. There were people in pickup trucks all around us, each carrying many large tubs of water. These provided an unlimited supply of ammunition for the people in the flatbeds shooting their water guns at pedestrians firing back, but also at cars driving next to them. If your window was not closed it was about to be.
Upon getting to the hostel, we changed into proper attire and went to join the fun. We immediately noticed the close-quarters style of fighting as most water guns had been replaced by buckets. Each bucket gave everyone the chance to get someone completely wet by running after them and emptying it on their head. No long-distance water guns required.
After some time enjoying the action, we went to grab dinner and drinks and watched as a group of people with buckets would splash every single person that drove by on a scooter or passed by on foot.
Helpful Tips:
As a tourist, being a part of this event for three days proved to be a bit more than we would have preferred. We thought having our hostel near Silom Road would be advantageous until we returned late at night from Khao San Road where we had to fight our way back to the hostel and get soaked all over again after an exhausting day. Traveling during Songkran proved to be quite difficult. Not only was commuting to and from the airport/hostels difficult do to traffic, closed routes, and pedestrian barricades; whenever you were walking around town moving to and from the airport you were a big target to get soaked. After 2 days of Songkran, we had our fill and could have gone without the third.
It was such a privilege to be able to celebrate the Thai New Year with the locals. It was so refreshing to see a whole country drop what they are doing, grab water guns, and enjoy the action. Being able to coordinate such an event across all generations of locals takes something special, and we have never seen anything close in comparison. This was a truly immersive cultural experience that many tourists are not fortunate to have.
