"Mai Pen Rai," My Pen Writes: Expedition Thailand Part 5: Last Legs...Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai on the Eve of the Eve of Songkran...which in Thai time means that it had already started. From the bus station we snagged a saawng tao and made our way to Rita and Michelle's guest house where we'd meet up with Rita's parents. Along the way we realized that the water fights had already begun as children with water guns attacked. We ran into Rita's parents outside their guest house and immediately took cover. I repacked my valuables into a dry bag, and headed out on a search for the hostel I would be sharing with 8 other WT volunteers and friends they met along their travels.

Just a little background info about Songkran. It is traditionally the Thai New Year Celebration, although Thailand has adopted the western tradition of changing the calendar on January 1. Thailand has held onto its numbering system as it is currently the year 2554 here in Thailand (hello from the future!). Anyway, Songkran involves washing the Buddha's and it is considered a way of rinsing away any sins from the previous year. The festival has since evolved into a country-wide water fight, with Chiang Mai as the center of the party.

I made my way to the guesthouse and met up with the friends I hadn't seen in about a month. We shared some travel stories and enjoyed each other's company. Another one of our first stops was to arm ourselves with watery weapons. There were choices galore from tiny guns outfitted with umbrellas, water guns with tank backpacks, water rockets, and buckets. We stocked up on a variety of weapons and readied ourselves for the next day.

We went out on the Eve of Songkran (the festival still hadn't officially started yet!) and all around the moat surrounding the Old City were people on sidewalks spraying anyone that came close. We decided to scope out the situation from the quieter side of the street. As we watched the revelers across the moat, I spotted a familiar face. Who could it be? It was Martin, one of the friends we met in Railey! I called across the moat, and he ran over, joining our crew for the remainder of the week. Once we knew what was going on, we joined in on the water fight and were quickly soaked to the bone - including everything that was in my "dry" bag (everyone's phones, my camera, my bus ticket home, etc). Unusually chilly during Thailand's hot season, we were actually freezing and decided to call it a night early to place all our items in a bag of rice...which was surprisingly difficult to find. (No worries, everyone's phones, and even my camera, all made a successful recovery eventually).

The next few days carried on much the same way, a blur of water. Knowing Thai allowed us to take part in a more exciting part of Songran. Thai people load up their trucks with water buckets and ice and stereos and drive around the moats. We had researched how we might charter a truck for the day, but we soon realized with the slow traffic and knowing Thai, we could easily just hop on any truck that had some friendly people. It was great to see the entire city and tourists from the world over take part. People young and old reveled together in the watery streets.

I did take one day to explore the surrounding area. I met back up with Michelle, Rita, and her parents for a day of trekking. We started off bamboo rafting down a river, took an elephant ride through the jungle, hiked through hill tribe villages, and swam in a waterfall. It was a wonderful break from crazy Chiang Mai, and we really enjoyed getting to know our bamboo raft and elephant guides (again, thanks to knowing Thai).

It was a great way to end 5 weeks of traveling around. And man was I grateful to be finally home in NKP. But little did I know, my travels wouldn't officially end there...