by Alex Gunn
It’s difficult to convey in words the sheer madness, scale and mayhem of the Songkran Festival in Chiang Mai. Like many old festivals it was originally, what sounds like a rather boring and quiet affair, where water was respectfully sprinkled upon senior members of the household as a way of cleaning away the old year, getting rid of bad luck and making way for a whole shed-load of brand new good luck for the coming year. In true Brahmaic tradition it also reflected events in the greater cosmos, the sprinkling of water mirroring the long awaited arrival of the falling rain from the heavens; the important and literal recreation of heaven on earth.
This once sedate ceremony has now morphed into the biggest and rowdiest water fight on the planet, fuelled by alcohol and ignited by high spirits, and fanned into a towering inferno of mayhem by a large army of dirty old men who can’t wait to see a city full of over excitable and giggly young women in wet T shirts. Strangely, nobody seems to mention this last bit.
When we arrived in Bangkok for our first ever holiday in Thailand it was just before Songkran. At the time I didn’t know Songkran from a hole in the ground and had no idea what it was. At best I would have guessed that it was some kind of singing festival celebrating Thai folk songs perhaps (if there are such things). I began to feel distinctly unnerved when the Bangkok hotel staff started giving us sombre advice about rescheduling our trip up north to another time. Sometimes they just laughed nervously and changed the subject. Surely the worst it could be is a large water fight?
Nothing in any guide book that I have ever read comes close to the madness and wetness that is the Chiang Mai Songkran Festival. It’s as if a giant has packed away the grown up, sensible world and wrapped it carefully in dry sheets of old fashioned brown paper and stored it out of harms way at the back of a waterproof cupboard and replaced it with an over indulged children’s party, supervised by a group of six year old girls pumped up on fizzy pop and cake, all jumping up and down screaming “more, more, more.”
To give you just a little whiff of the watery misrule you could expect to see during the festival, imagine if you will this every day scene of Chiang Mai folk:
A tired ex-pat father is keen to get back from the office without getting too wet. He knows, of course, that he will get wet, there’s no avoiding it, it’s just a matter of degrees. A bit wet is okay, but fully drenched from head to toe is horrible, especially on a motorbike. So, he decides to go home “around the back way,” past the old fire station to avoid the main roads.
For 51 weeks of the year the old fire station on the back way home is exactly what it sounds like; an old, dusty fire station on the way back home. For the most part the only signs of life are the chickens that peck about in the dust next to the entrance ramp. There are two very old, very frail fire trucks that would look more at home in a private collection of ancient service vehicles. Needless to say that nothing ever happens in the fire station. Except, that is, during the Songkran Festival.
During the festivities the firemen drag out all the high pressure hoses, fill up every available bucket and basin and swap their brains with a group of over excited six year old boys who have been let loose in an aspartame factory. They go absolutely berserk and even more so when they see a tired looking ex-pat Dad trying to keep dry. Needless to say that I was completely drenched by a group of giggling, middle aged, drunken firemen.
It’s not the most usual situation to encounter, and again goes way off The Scale of Situations. How am I supposed to react? Laugh, cry, stamp my feet and throw their ice cream and jelly on the floor?
I wondered what would happen if you called the fire brigade to report that your house was on fire. Would they sober up and stumble out and come to your rescue or would they just carry on drenching hapless motorcyclists? While I was mumbling to myself in a rather humourless way about the irresponsibility of it all I realized that the chance of anything actually catching fire in a city wide water fight was about a million to one. It would take an arsonist of unprecedented ambition and determination to create even a small flicker of flame in a tinder box, let alone set an entire house on fire. Everything gets very wet indeed.
Apart from the fire station back road it goes without saying that every road, lane and track in Chiang Mai, especially in the old town and around the moat, is full of people screaming, laughing and throwing water over each other. Thousands of pick up trucks gridlock the city, each one with a mobile party dancing in the back throwing buckets of water at everyone from big plastic water tanks and oil drums lashed to the back. Every house has a group of kids and adults outside, whom I suspect are well pumped up with copious amounts of whisky (probably the kids as well), who are armed with hoses, buckets and giant toy water guns ready to soak the nearest moving object, which is usually me.
It was into this self inflicted maelstrom that we innocently stepped/ plunged on that first fateful visit to what is now our home. Between leaving the airport and arriving at our hotel, which looked like the Wet and Wild water theme park in Florida, everything was soaked. The children where crying. Tears were rolling down their water drenched faces, “when can we go home Daddy,” they wailed “we hate it here.” To rather jet lagged and tired parents it seemed like a watery version of hell.
This year my sense of watery fun was pushed to the limit. I was scootering my way back home along the ring road when I was caught in one of those almighty thunder storms that I mentioned earlier. From bright and sunny it went to dark and cloudy in moments. The skies darkened, ominous black clouds appeared like battleships, torrential rain poured from the heavens and the wind lashed across the road.
Desperate to get home to safety I carried on weaving along the deserted road when all of a sudden a large tree crashed across the road just ahead of me. If I had been just seconds earlier I would have been crushed to death. The noise was horrendous, trees were falling like nine pins and anything that wasn’t bolted down was being blown across the road. It felt like the end of the world. Bill boards were blown away as though they were nothing but matchsticks and pieces tissue paper, bamboo scaffolding was falling down around half finished houses and debris of all kinds was whipped at frightening speed across the road. I had no alternative other than to stop by the fallen tree. It was just impossible to keep going, the wind was too strong.
I was both pleased that I was still alive and not lying crushed beneath the tree but also terrified that something terrible was about to happen.
I thought of my wife and children and hoped that they were okay at home.
I tried to remember the correct emergency procedures to protect oneself in the event of tornadoes and hurricanes and tropical high winds. I couldn’t remember whether I was supposed to take shelter under a tree or keep as far away from trees as possible. Or did this only apply in thunder storms and lightening strikes?
A recent news clip from America came to mind of a reporter standing next to a collapsed bridge and saying “if only they had stayed where they were and not tried to shelter under the bridge they would still be alive today.” Thankfully there was no nearby bridge to crush me to death.
I wondered whether I should lie flat in the open, on a piece of nearby waste land but thought that it was unlikely that I would make it without getting hit by a piece of flying debris. Should I make a dash for it and jump in the ditch at the side of the road?
There wasn’t actually time to do any of these life preserving actions, as, unnoticed a small girl armed with a bucket of water had crept up behind me, from what remained of a nearby house. As I crouched by the fallen tree praying that I would survive to see my family once again I had a sense of someone behind me and turned around just in time to cop the whole bucketful of water in the face.
She ran off giggling back across the windswept road while trees continued to crash to the ground and shredded bits of houses blew past me. I really didn’t know, and still don’t, what to make of it. I can only imagine that the sense of fun and feverish excitement of Songkra
n overrides normal social behaviours, like preserving life in treacherous situations, that, and being able to throw water over foreigners without recrimination.
So, that’s Songkran.
Chapter 6
Thom And The Market
Late April: Hot sun and occasional rain. Everything is turning green again, even our garden.
I have somehow ended up in my lovely local market with Thom.
Despite living here for several years and being married to a beautiful Thai woman called Khun Meow, (who is kind and forgiving in equal measure which is lucky for Thom as he is daft and loud in equal measure), Thom has, rather incredibly, never been to a Thai “Fresh” Market. I’m not looking forward to it.
It’s mid afternoon and the market is at its quietest, recovering from the lunch time trade and preparing for the busy evening rush. I am hoping there is nobody around, but I am wrong.
As we walk into the dark cool interior Thom yells out really loudly.
“Who the fuck buys all this shit?” He is pointing to a huge pile of radishes. He’s had a couple of beers at lunch time and is even louder and more exuberant than his normal loud and exuberant self.
“What’s this?” he yells.
He is now waving a radish around as though it’s alive and banging it on a table as though he’s trying to kill it, much to the astonishment of the young woman whose stall it is.
“It’s a radish Thom.”
“Do they sell pizza?” he says. I shake my head.
“Burgers?” I shake my head again.
“Fries?” he says hopefully. I continue to shake my head.
“What the fuck do they sell here then?” he says, genuinely a bit shocked.
He is clearly overwhelmed by the vast amounts of food, but has yet to grasp the basics of normal conversation and conventional behaviour and the fact he is about 10,000 miles away from Texas. He is also, as you know, “half drunk.”
I seize on an idea that might somehow restrain him and force him to exercise a tiny bit of control before thoughts and obscenities fly out of his mouth at full southern American volume.
“Thom,” I say like a sneaky teenager in a playground. “You know that I sometimes write articles and books and things…do you mind if I write about you?”
I hope, of course, that he will say yes, and then realize that if he does anything too crazy I might write about it, thus exposing him to the world. Well, a few of you anyway. It’s a sneaky trick I admit, but I was feeling desperate and couldn’t think quickly enough to save myself and him from total embarrassment.
“Do what the goddam hell you want if it makes you happy buddy, I’ll never read it anyway. It’ll probably be a crock of shit.” He throws his head back and roars with laughter as though he is trying to make himself heard on the moon, or indeed Austin, Texas.
I am now all out of plans in the middle of my lovely market that I frequent every day, with a half drunk Thom who has a voice like a bass drum through a stadium PA system. He will embarrass himself, and me and alienate me forever from one of the great joys in my life, “my” market.
As a rule foreigners don’t come to this market. It does take a bit of getting used to and unless you speak a bit of Thai and find yourself out beyond the main centre of the city it would not be a place you would think of going. There are very few prices marked on goods and those there are, are in Thai. Nobody speaks English, so buying stuff can be a problem, unless like me you are quietly persistent, have a real love and interest in food and cooking and don’t mind making endless mistakes and having people laugh at you when you ask for 100 kilos of avocados. Thom will just not get anything about this market and they will hate him, and, by default, hate me and one of my few great pleasures in life will be ruined forever, I thought, rather dramatically.
Just as I am thinking all this and before I can formulate another plan Thom unexpectedly shouts something like “BOOM SHACK-A-LACK-A-LACK.”
Oh my God, he’s found the toy stall.
The market toy stall is great. It’s piled high with the sort of cheap toys that fill children’s Christmas stockings every winter the world over. There are train sets, and skipping ropes, candy canes and gob stoppers, magic tricks, sticker sets and rub on transfers, giant plastic dinosaurs that roar when you squeeze them, wiggly rubber snakes, boxes of candy cigarettes, fireworks, jack-in-the-boxes, pink plastic slinkies, pirate sets with swords and an eye patch and multi coloured fairy wings. It really is a wonderland of cheap, brightly coloured plastic and designed carefully to make sure that all kids who are dragged past it by their parents can only be dragged beyond it by brute force or a 10 Baht toy. It also seems to have worked on Thom.
“BOOM,” he says, his eyes wide, trying to take in the untakeable.
“Boom” he says again quietly to himself as though it was a gentle echo of the first boom that had been reverberating around his huge body and just took a while to come out. He was lost in thought.
“Geez… can I buy some stuff?” he turns to me.
“Yes, if you want Thom. It’s a market, you can buy what you like,” I said, suddenly sounding like a wise grown up.
He let out a BOOM so loud it made me jump.
He started picking up toys, and games, and gimmicks, and novelities with wide eyed wonderment.
“Meow will love this” he says as he waves a life size rubber plucked chicken in the air. I’m not so sure.
Soon he has an armful of stuff. The lady who runs the stall is not sure whether to beam with satisfaction at her potential sale of the century or call the police.
“This is fantastic buddy, why didn’t you bring me here before?” says Thom. I am lost for words.
He finishes scooping up handfuls of toys and jokes and a plastic ray gun that fires plastic pellets (“for your cats” he explains and winks) and dumps them in front of the lady who owns the stall. She is trembling with excitement at the prospect of making the biggest sale of her life. She has to borrow a calculator from the sausage man.
She adds it all up and Thom hands over a 1000 Baht note, which is unheard of in the market. Other traders become aware of what is going on, and the massive sale that has just taken place. Some of the stalls in the market don’t even have 1000 Baht worth of stock, let alone selling most of it in one go.
By now two other ladies on neighbouring stalls have come to help the toy seller bag up Thom’s stuff. Eventually they hold up numerous small plastic bags which are bulging with most of what was the toy stall.
“Put it there…” Thom yells. Nobody moves, and for a moment I don’t know what’s going on either. The worried ladies behind the stall look at me for help, but all I can do is return their same bewildered and desperate stare.
He holds up his right hand.
“C’MON….PUT IT HERE….HIGH FIVES”
They put down the bags and hold up their hands giggling, and Thom high fives the three tiny Thai ladies who have never been high fived in their lives. One of them holds up a small boy who also wants to join in the fun and is waving his tiny little hand.
“That’s right…HIGH FIVES,” Thom shouts and high fives the boy. I notice that the boy’s hand is about the same size as Thom’s thumb.
The ladies and their surrounding friends spontaneously break in to applause and giggle.
I cannot believe what is happening.
“BOOM….I love this place,” Thom says to me excitedly. “What else can I buy?”
We march around the market in a quirky little procession. He buys a huge bag full of green oranges, several kilos of strawberries and a really huge bunch of purple and white orchids for Meow. They are usually sold for 15 Baht for a small bunch and Thom buys 100 Bahts worth; a level of consumerism unprecedented in this sleepy little out of the way market.
As he walked and boomed his way around, he high fived every stall holder he brought somethin
g from.
All eyes in the market were now on Thom. They watched everything he did with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. So did I. He bought some deep fried chicken heads for my cats. He, quite understandably was a bit shocked at seeing the huge pile of perfect heads, battered and fried. But it didn’t last long as within a minute he was waving one around in front of his trousers like a penis. The man behind the stall nearly killed himself laughing. He got a high ten and I had to hold Thom’s strawberries.
He showed my friend, who sells rice and supports Arsenal FC as madly as I do, how to do a special hand shake called “Potato Fries.” They both practiced rolling their right hand into a fist, punching each other’s fist in mid air, and shouting “POTATO” and as their hands fall away in slow motion with their fingers spread out like French fries, they both yell “FRIES.” They do it several times over, and it looks good. It looks like a scene in a film. The little boy from the toy stall comes over and wants to have a go at “Potato Fries” as well.
“I wan podado fry,” he is shouting and his mum is trying to calm him down. He repeats it until Thom turns round and does podado fry with him. He squeals with delight and rushes off to teach it to the whole market, shouting “podado fry, podado fry, podado fry.”
As we leave the market Thom turns around, like a World Wrestling Federation celebrity wrestler leaving an arena. He put his stuff down on the rice stall, raises both arms in the air and calls back across the market “Thailand I love you….BOOM,” some people look startled and some people applaud uncertainly.
As we walk away Thom turns and says:
“Hey buddy, that was fun.”
I say, “Yes Thom, that was fun,” and a small boy runs past us yelling “podado fry” at the top of his little lungs.
Chapter 7
A Little Bit More Understanding…
a little less action please
May: Still hot and rainy. I really must find a gardener.