Celebrate Thailand's Water Festival in Chiang Mai

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Buddhist New Year is the time to see Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city, at its most animated, from the religious processions to the wet ’n’ wild antics of the local residents WORDS TIM MOORE 52

@mrtimmoore l PHOTOGRAPHS MATT MUNRO

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Temporary pumps are installed to suck water from Chiang Mai’s city moats, but any water source will be raided during the Songkran festival APRIL 2017

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T H A I L A N D ’ S WAT E R F E S T I VA L The temple in the village of Baan Mae On

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OR LONG MONTHS SUMMER has been building to a crescendo in northern Thailand, slowly filling the bowl of mountains that surrounds Chiang Mai with soupy heat. By the middle of April, a sticky, wilting haze dulls the glint from the gilded Buddhas that gaze serenely out from the city’s 300 temples. The scents of frangipani, mango and hyper-spiced street food have been slow-cooked to a ripe miasma; the contents of the four-mile moat that girdles the Old City simmered to a green broth.

Something has to give and it can’t wait until the rains come down in late May. At dusk on 12 April, the downtown pavements begin to mass with excitable water warriors, fingers on plastic triggers, thumbs pressed over hose tips, buckets abrim. Ahead lies a four day, man-made monsoon, which will saturate the city’s streets and all who sail in

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them.

By tradition officially stretching from 13 to 16 April, Songkran is the spray-andpray festival that marks the Buddhist New Year on 15 April. It’s a bewildering, but glorious fusion of dignified religious faith, familial devotion and deafening, technicolour aquatic madness. As a celebration of towering national importance, Songkran is like a Western Christmas and New Year rolled into one, with a soggy side order of trick-or-treat Halloween mayhem.

Every dawn, families file soberly into temples with offerings and votive decorations. Every afternoon, rather less soberly, they rush through the streets toting triple-chamber water pistols. The first activity endows good karma and the second good luck. Though it might not seem so at the time, a head-to-toe slapstick soaking is the best start a year could bring.

‘Ahead lies a four day, man-made monsoon, which will saturate the city’s streets and all who sail in them’ Around 95 per cent of Thais are Buddhist and Chiang Mai – for 500 years capital of the old Lanna kingdom, the nation’s rural heartland – prides itself as a repository of spiritual and communal tradition. Nowhere is Songkran celebrated so wholeheartedly: here, the festivities are strung out for an extra day and with an enthusiasm that draws crowds from right across the land.

Initiate conversation on the street – ideally during the buckets-down ceasefire that tentatively holds from 8pm to 10am – and you’ll often find yourself talking to one of the countless northerners who’ve relocated to Thailand’s more prosperous south, returning to their ancestral homeland for a uniquely profound New Year experience.

It’s an opportunity to renew and reaffirm traditions, and the family bonds that Thais hold so dear. Even at Songkran, blood is much thicker than water.

‘We just don’t have temples like this in Bangkok,’ says Chiang Mai-born Kompun, admiring the weathered dragons that guard the 19th-century Wat Ton Kwen. ‘And the people up here are more kind and respectful, they always have time for you.’

With its sombre dark-wood gables and scattering of silent, orange-robed monks, the temple is a model of ascetic restraint, just a few miles outside the city, but a world away from the power-shower delirium.

Only the colourful and intricately cut paper flags that sprout from towers of sand acknowledge the festivities. Kompun and her son Wasin have already added their contributions: the flags are themed to their respective zodiac signs, and an enshrined Songkran tradition is to bring a bucket or bag of sand to the temple, replacing the earth that worshippers have carried out on their feet over the previous year. Now, she sprinkles saffron perfumed, jasminepetalled water on the golden head of the temple’s Buddha. ‘It’s a blessing, to wash away the old year and make a good start for the new one.’ With a nervous

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Kruba Noi has been a monk since he was 11.

Left Incense sticks are lit for prayers. Right Offerings

Songkran parade dancers in Chiang Mai. Left Prayer flags are thought to bring luck Songkran in full swing.

Left Buddha cleansing.

Far left Aoi Silphisuth, who runs a homestay, and her family

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On the second day of the festival, Thais traditionally build sand pagodas at temples and bring flags as offerings

‘The monks’ bowls overflow with lotus parcels packed with sticky rice’ smile, she admits she won’t be participating in the super-soaked anarchy that has burst forth from this graceful, symbolic act.

Clean-slate renewal and ritualised ‘merit making’ are the twin spiritual cornerstones of this festival. The former manifests itself in the redecorating of temples, intensive spring cleaning and the wearing of garish new clothes: families congregate in matching Hawaiian shirts and drape floral garlands around each other’s necks. The latter, the earning of good karma for the coming year, begins in earnest on the penultimate dawn of the old one, on 13 April, when a long line of monks files through the red-brick columns of Tha Phae gate, one of the four entrances to Chiang Mai’s 13th-century Old City.

A dense crowd presses around them, toting offerings that are devoutly held forth with a respectful bow or on desperate occasion slam-dunked over a sea of heads into the monks’ silver bowls. These swiftly 56

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overflow with an extraordinary blend of the decorative and the practical: lotus-blossom bouquets, neat banana-leaf parcels packed with sticky rice, bags of crisps, drink cartons, torches, disinfectant, toilet rolls. Thailand’s 38,000 temples are almost entirely reliant on donations from the faithful and Songkran is their greatest alms-harvest.

‘I see some monks who maybe like the free food too much,’ laughs Kruba Noi, a slender novitiate who, at 19, has worn the orange for eight years. His temple lies out in the rice fields, an hour from Chiang Mai in the village of Baan Mae On, and his Songkran is largely spent accepting alms from kneeling, shoeless farming families and chanting convoluted, quick-fire blessings in return. On request, he must pay tribute to ancestors, angels, household spirits and deceased pets. It’s tough vocal work: by the end of a long morning, he’s mumbling nineteen to the dozen, like a drowsy livestock auctioneer.

At Songkran, it can feel as if every other Thai male is a monk and there has indeed been a surge in numbers over recent years: the country is currently home to more than 300,000. Some elders sniff that most newbies are young men who sign up for just a few months, drawn by the chance to study, the free bed and board, and especially the kudos.

A stint as a monk bestows much familial karma and is a very attractive entry on the CV of a potential employee or husband.

Kruba Noi, though, is in it for the long haul.

‘For me, this festival is about renewal, the birth of a new year and another opportunity to improve myself,’ he says, referencing an allegiance to reincarnation that underpins his religious career. Asked why he chose to become a monk, he looks nonplussed: ‘It wasn’t a choice. I was a monk in a previous life and just responded to that call.’

In Baan Mae On, extra-temple festivities are rooted in deference and fraternity.

Families wander through the bamboo glades and knobbly fruited kaffir lime trees, and into each other’s open-sided teak houses, offering baskets of kanom tian – little pyramids of tapioca and coconut wrapped in banana leaves – to elderly relatives, teachers and respected shamans.

Rural Songkran is a largely dry affair, though Aoi Silphisuth, who runs a homestay cookery school in the village, points out the tin troughs that stand in wait by some thresholds. ‘Just in case, you know, for defence.’ Her family will go into Chiang Mai for an evening squirt, though her son is well aware that their armoury – a kid’s bucket and a plastic bottle with a hole in the lid – will see them mercilessly outgunned.

By early afternoon, it’s topped 40˚C back in the Old City and a procession is wobbling out of the heat haze down a long, straight avenue. In Chiang Mai, 13 April is centred around this spectacle, one that began at

A bodhi tree with mai kam sticks, meant to bring luck to those who leave them. Right Food is a big part of the festival

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‘In the clamorous, sodden hours ahead, every statue and spectator will enjoy a comprehensive ceremonial cleanse’

The moats around the Old City and Huay Kaew, to the northeast, are the centre of the action

first light with the hectic presentation of monkish alms. Now, the pavements are dense with expectant worshippers and street vendors hawking festival fuel in all its forms: bags of khaep mu, the deep-fried pork-rind that accessorises every meal in the city; the challenging blend of bitter, black herb jelly and condensed milk that is chao kuai; crate after crate of topless, hurl-ready bottles of cloyingly perfumed water. It always rains on this parade.

The dancers and musicians in the procession’s first ranks are a graceful riot of tortured woodwind, garish silk and delicate, synchronised movement. Lined up behind them, half-hidden by rolling arcs of spray, stretches an endless cavalcade of flowersmothered carnival floats, each bearing a Buddha on temporary leave from one of the city’s showpiece temples. In the clamorous, sodden hours ahead, every statue and spectator will enjoy a comprehensive ceremonial cleanse. Yet as a Songkran water fight, this is no more than a dry run.

Come early evening, and Chiang Mai is awash. A tide seeps over the threshold of every commercial establishment and well-oiled, well-watered drinkers drench each other from the forecourt of every bar.

In the three days that follow, taking a tuk-tuk through the downtown crossfire feels like an unhinged theme-park ride. You slide helplessly about on sodden vinyl, strafed by 58

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jets of chilled water, manic shrieks and waves of cheesy Thai techno. After a while, you realise the driver isn’t frantically hooting his horn to deter the hose-wielders and bucket-hurlers, but to get their attention. He’s laughing now, but might stop when he finds himself being paid with a wodge of sodden pulp. Double-wrapped waterproof pouches for phones and cash are a Songkran essential.

So too, if you run the watery gauntlet along that microbially rich moat, are swimming goggles. Wet, wet, wet. You feel it in your fingers, you feel it in your toes. Thailand’s government, reacting to traditionalist concerns, has issued an edict for decorous restraint, though you’d never guess it.

A dry shirt is a red rag: unassuming, overdressed visitors are given a full-body tsunami the second they leave their hotels.

The street is a logjam of pick-ups, each home to a water butt and a sodden, gleeful family.

One group totes giant syringes, piped into backpack reservoirs. High-velocity, pumpaction super-soakers are the preferred youth choice, but the more experienced have come to learn that for instant, shock-andawe impact, nothing beats a bucket. The Songkran aqua-battle is by no means just a young man’s game: put a brimming pail in a grandfather’s hands and he’s seven again, tapping into that ageless, universal thrill of the spill. As an outsider, it’s difficult to subdue the hardwired reflex to take the

assailant to angry task. Even more so when it transpires that you’re expected to thank them for the blessed sluicing away of grubby old misfortunes. Every visitor to Thailand will be told about sanuk, the national credo of taking pleasure from every life experience, both rough and smooth. The sight of very drunk people peaceably hurling water into each other’s faces for four days straight must rank as sanuk’s ultimate expression.

‘For 360 days, Thai people are super-polite and respectful,’ says a very wet Athirath Arunyaka, up from Bangkok to soak up Songkran with his Chiang Mai-resident family. ‘This is like a purge of all our bad behaviour.’ It’s the final night of the fight, the storm before the calm. In the morning the silent streets are lined with a colourful detritus of cracked buckets, broken water pistols and soggy garlands, the air heavy with old beer and incense. Tentatively, the pavements fill with the extremely old and the very young, kept inside for their own safety. Previously unviable cycle rickshaws return to the road, personal space is once more painstakingly respected. But the heat is already bullying and today there will be no baptismal relief.

With the cleansing of Buddha, the sins and bad luck of the old year are washed away, ready for the new

Tim Moore has written 10 travel books. Last year, for The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold, he cycled the route of the old Iron Curtain.

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MAKE IT HAPPEN

Chiang Mai GETTING THERE AND AROUND

There are direct flights from Singapore on Silk Air (from US$329; silkair.com) and from Kuala Lumpur on AirAsia (from US$90; airasia.com).

TOUR OPERATOR

Throughout the year, Intrepid offers small-group tours around the Chiang Mai area, ranging from the three-day Chiang Mai and Elephants Tour, with guests meeting an abbot of a Buddhist temple and visiting an elephant sanctuary (from US$310, including accommodation, breakfast and airport transfer) to the eight-day Explore Northern Thailand Tour, which includes a homestay in Baan Mae On village and time in ancient

Sukhothai (from US$633, including accommodation, transport from Bangkok and some meals; intrepidtravel.com).

Alternatively, Urban Adventures has one-day trips that has opportunities to meet Buddhist monks and learn meditation at a 600-year-old temple (US$70; urbanadventures.com).

FIND OUT MORE

Lonely Planet’s Thailand (US$29.99) covers the city of Chiang Mai. Alternatively, you can download individual chapters online at shop. lonelyplanet. com (US$4.95).

HEART OF THE ACTION Just east of the Old City moat and close to Tha Pae Gate – the focal point of the Songkran procession – Raming Lodge is a smart hotel offering great bang for your baht, with an onsite spa and swimming pool (from US$50; raminglodge.com).

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SONKGRAN: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE DAY BY DAY WHILE YOU’RE IN CHIANG MAI…

WHERE TO STAY OLD CITY LUXURY Next to the Old City’s most revered temple, Wat Phra Singh, the Rachamankha is a serene complex of hidden courtyards, poolside massage pavilions (pictured below) and antique-laden rooms (from US$187; rachamankha.com).

Chiang Mai’s streets awash with revellers

PEACE AND VALUE Located in the quieter southern part of the city centre, Gord guesthouse has spacious rooms, a small tranquil garden and complimentary bicycles for guests to borrow (from US$35; gordchiangmai.com).

SAMPLE STREET FOOD Sizzling barbecue and lemongrass aromas are omnipresent in Chiang Mai. The best places to try Thai food here include Warorot evening market and the Sunday Walking Street market on Thanon Ratchadamnoen Road.

VISIT AN ELEPHANT SANCTUARY Offering an alternative to circus-like shows with poor animal-safety standards, the Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary where visitors help look after rescued pachyderms in a semi-wild environment (elephantnaturepark.org).

MEDITATE WITH MONKS Chiang Mai brims with Buddhist temples and many offer short meditation courses and retreats for English-speakers, including the one-day and two-day courses offered at Wat Suan Dok (from US$12.50; monkchat.net).

COMPILED BY TIM MOORE. PHOTOGRAPHS: MATT MUNRO, SHELL125/GETTY, INSPIRED CITIZEN MEDIA

ESSENTIALS

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15 APRIL

To prepare for the upcoming year, this is a day of washing away the old. Thais clean their houses and cleanse Buddha images in ritual ceremonies with jasmine-scented water. The statues are paraded in a colourful, musical procession through town

The first official day of the new year, this is when people gather early in the morning at temples to offer food prepared the previous day, fruit, new robes and alms to monks.

Traditionally this was the day for playfully sprinkling water over friends and family, though nowadays all-out water fights take place across the entire festival.

Wan Sangkhan Lohng

14 APRIL

Wan Nao

Locals spend much of this day eating with family. They also visit temples to fashion mounds of sand into mini pagodas, decorating them with flowers and paper streamers, to gain spiritual merit.

Wan Payawan

16 APRIL

Wan Paak Bpee

This is an important and special day, where Thai people honour their ancestors and respectfully pour scented water over the hands of elders, who in turn give them blessings. Every family congregates in their homes to prepare and consume curries made from the rather sickly-sweet jackfruit, whose name in Thai translates as good luck.

SURVIVAL TIPS WATERPROOF EVERYTHING There’s no avoiding a soaking during Songkran, so make sure cameras, phones and any cash are safely tucked away in impermeable bags.

DRESS FOR BATTLE Make sure that you’re wearing clothes that won’t bleed colour or end up entirely see-through. Water guns, buckets, and bowls are all fair game and can be refilled at free water stations and vendors throughout the old town and moat area. Don’t forget sun protection!

STOCK UP ON CASH All public offices, including banks, close for several days, so ATMs sometimes run out of money. Pick up plenty of baht in advance but don’t carry large amounts of cash on your person, as pickpockets can be present in the crowds.

REMEMBER IT’S A RELIGIOUS HOLIDAY Travellers are welcome at temples where important ceremonies are taking place. But show respect by dressing conservatively.

Remove your shoes, don’t touch the monks and avoid kissing until you’re off temple grounds.

And remember to wish everyone ‘sawasdee pee mai’, happy new year.

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