“Is your phone in a safe place?” The kindly concierge at Gap’s House in Chiang Mai peered over her glasses at me as I walked by the front desk. It was 11 o’clock in the morning, 3 days before the Songkran festivities were officially scheduled to begin. I gaped at her. “They’ve started already?” Clearly, I had no idea what I was in for.
Gap’s House was a peaceful sanctuary, a walled garden filled with beautiful carvings and fragrant with flowers. But outside, truck after truck rattled by, beds packed with wet kids, faces streaked with white paint and carrying guns almost as big as they were. The sound of shrieks and splashes filled the air. I had about 15 blocks to walk to meet my girlfriend at her shop. A lone, unarmed whitey with a fanny pack and the kind of face that often makes people go “are you lost, hun?” I was gonna get killed and I knew it.
Two minutes after leaving my hotel, a teenage boy has a gun in my face. I try my best to look like a cute girl and ask him to please not shoot me. He lowers his weapon. But it’s immediately evident that I won’t be so lucky next time.
Oh, by the way, these are all water guns, I should mention that.
By the time I get to the square, it’s like a thousand fire hydrants have been set off. Despite heat that will dry your laundry in 30 minutes, gallons and gallons of water flow through the streets. It’s incredible. Everywhere you look, brightly colored supersoakers are leaned up against the side of restaurants, piled on vendor carts, clutched in wet hands. Everyone is laughing, everyone is having a fantastic time. I start to relax.
And then a gallon of ice cold water hits my face with a giant SPLASH. An ENTIRE bucket of water has just been thrown on me. I look back at my assailant. He’s smiling and wishing me a happy new year. This is flirting in the time of Songkran.
I duck and dodge my way through the city and by the time I reach the shop, I’m almost dry. But alas, the waitresses are out in front of the vegetarian restaurant across the street, and they’re determined to get my ass even though the last time I ate there I tipped like 40%. I swerve and leap heroically onto the front step of the shop, ready to pull open the door and slam it behind me just in time. Instead, I fumble and hit the glass window, causing my girlfriend to look up in alarm so now she’s watching me as my legs shoot out from under me and I pratfall on the wet tile like I’m in an infomercial for personal injury lawyers. Damn vegetarians.
I towel off inside the shop and find a bandaid for the toe that I cut open on the way over. (“Infection! Sepsis! These streets are filled with dirty water!” the part of my brain that I would willingly lobotomize shrieks.). But I’m a good sport and I’m having fun. Two older British tourists stomp down the road in front of the shop and they are so, so mad about being wet. Not me. I’m having fun. But I also want to stay in the shop until it’s time leave for dinner.
Dinner is a long table on the sidewalk in front of On The Road Books. The garage-style shop door is partially lowered and flattened cardboard boxes are laid on the floor to protect the books from the streams of water firing everywhere, but nobody is being too fussy about getting wet, it’s unavoidable. We all have a supersoaker in one hand and chopsticks in the other hand, and we’re returning fire from the roving crowds as we pinch delicious foods into our maws and feed each other like baby birds. There’s a huge barrel of ice water out front. As she scoops water from the barrel into a pink basin, one of my friends tells me “I’m saving this to throw on a handsome man.” She won’t be saving it for long, because this city is full of shirtless bros who look like they do nothing but gym and tan. One of the bros, trying to impress her, tells her that he knows a few words in Thai. “House” he says in Thai. “Food.” And then, puzzlingly “Bitch”. The whole street goes dead quiet. “You can’t just say that word,” the bro’s pale, bespectacled friend tells him. “It’s completely unacceptable” my friend declares in perfect English, and adds “You need to leave immediately.” The tension is thicky thicky thick. My friend’s father, usually the most jovial of the group, is grave as he tries to find the words in English to explain to me that there are five words you can’t say in Thai and that was one of them. One of the other guests cheekily starts listing other bad words, and my girlfriend covers my ears like I’m five years old. I still don’t know what the other four words are.
Several hours later, a huge fire breaks out, burning through the trails of gasoline floating on top of the water from all the motorbikes. People cheer. No one is bothered. The fire is eventually extinguished, but the party vibes are not dampened in the slightest. So take note, even a street fire isn’t as bad of a buzzkill as a white guy saying a Thai curse word is.
4 buckets of Chaang Beer later, I hear someone say “let’s go…souy.” I think to myself, “oh we’re going to get khao souy, what a lovely idea.” I picture myself in a cozy shop, all nice and dry, eating a bowl of warm noodles with my friends. We walk into a courtyard and are stopped by some cops who tell us to trash our beer bottles and hand over 50 baht. Drunkenly, I wonder what kind of noodle place hires guards. A wall of super bassed out sound hits my entire body and I look up to see that we’ve arrived at the legendary party complex ZOE IN YELLOW. (Zoe, not souy!) Hundreds of revelers are dancing in front of a huge soundstage where giant neon letters pulse out the DJ’s moniker, “Mr. Bus”. (Hm?) Streams of water are blasting everywhere, and overhead, an enormous chandelier pours down glittering rivers of water as the beat drops. Everyone is wet. Everyone is wild. Everyone is ecstatic. Probably the best night of my life so far.