Songkran

[Alfmaz]

Most time I get out for this, but sometime I like to see how other parts of Thailand celebrate Songkran.

 

I love Songkran most places like Pattaya, Hua Hin and Lamai is OK most Bar owners have a rule when people are not playing water and sitting in a bar drinking and earning money for them no water play. But it's always the English people who don't understand this rule they get to drunk and act like idiots or school children.

 

The bar owners of two main bars in Khon Kaen right across the road from each other don't give a shirt about their customers and let people wet you inside the bar while in joying a drink and chat with a lady and where do the people who wet us come from England. Lots of water play in the streets if they want it

 

I agree Songkran is great when you want to be wet and on the street, but when you want a break you should get one from the people you are keeping in business. I think next time in Khon Kaen I'll drink where the Thai people drink they have got it right no water play in their place of eating or drinking

[cavanami]

I was about 30 klicks west of Khon Kaen and the Songkran was the best I have seen in LOS in the past 10 years! Very respectable!! No hot peppers or ice cubes in the water thrown...like they do in BKK or Patters!!!

 

It was hot so any water thrown was appreciated, at least by me. There were a few areas in the moo baan (village) where there were groups of people out on the street dancing and throwing water. It was easy to see, if you don't want to get wet, don't go thru there, no hassle!

 

I was the only farang in the moo baan (small place) and it was fun! On Friday there was no water throwing at all on the small soi I stayed on. A quick 200 meter walk brought me to a group a few sois over with the music and dancing going on. The ladies ranged from 8 to 80 and all were very polite and it was several hours of fun.

[Flashermac]

 

Cav, that's what it was like in the 1970s and early '80s - join in if you want. Otherwise, you'd be left alone. In many places it's now become: "I'm gonna throw filthy water on you whether you like it or not. You got a problem?"

 

 

 

 

[Alfmaz]

But it's only the English guys who don't leave you alone. "One said if you don't like it don't come here for Songkran". I said read a book or travel logs of what Songkran real is and how the Thai's celebrate it not how the westerners do it

[ThaiHome]

But it's only the English guys who don't leave you alone. "One said if you don't like it don't come here for Songkran". I said read a book or travel logs of what Songkran real is and how the Thai's celebrate it not how the westerners do it

 

 

Personally, I will take Soi 4 or Silom over the way Thais celebrate Songkran any day.

TH

 

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[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

I guess that video shows the cultural values that Thailand aims for

 

Some girls flashing tits causes a national outrage, but a guy being beaten half to death is perfectly normal.

 

Sanuk!

 

[cavanami]

...or as I saw on the Thai TV news a day or two ago, policeman directing traffic and trying to direct a car into the other lane, the car hits the policeman, throws him up in the air, then the car continues on...it was tough to watch the video! Such is Songkran traffic and some of the idiots behind the wheel!!!

[ThaiHome]

Hi,

 

I guess that video shows the cultural values that Thailand aims for

 

Some girls flashing tits causes a national outrage, but a guy being beaten half to death is perfectly normal.

 

Sanuk!

 

I believe that in any Western Country there would some outcry if some teenage girls were filmed in the downtown section of any major country dancing topless in public.

 

While at the same time, with no publicity at all, in their ghettos, gangs were busy fighting each other in less the Marquess of Queensberry methods.

 

Your ethnocentricity and lack of any effort at objectivity is showing again.

TH

 

[ozpharlap]

What is there to be objective about? It is a cowardly drunken attack, regardless of what country it is in and should not be condone anywhere

 

I don't think that in the west that there wouldn't be an outcry of such flagrant public nudity, but they would not go, as far, as saying it was a national day of shame

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

Like Ozpharlap has already pointed out, it is the extend of the outcry that is the point here. The incident here is portrayed as a serious smudge on the country's cultural values. Do you really think government spokesmen would come out and make similar statements is something like this happened in the West?

 

As for the second part, a few years back there was a very nasty attack by 2 guys on motorbikes in Holland which left a shopclerk dead because he tried to help an elderly woman.

 

That caused a serious outrage in the country, some girls showing their tits during a wild party would not.

 

Then again Americans tend to be a lot more puritan than Dutch people, so it is likely flashing tits would be seen as more serious than violence there as well

 

Sanuk!