Cel­e­brat­ing New Year In Thai­land, My Pics From Songkran 2009

My friends warned me never, never, ever to visit Thai­land in April - of course I didn’t listen.

So why did my friends warn me?

Be­cause in April the Thai peo­ple cel­e­brate the New Year. They call it “Songkran” and fun­nily it’s not cel­e­brated on the same day in the whole coun­try, but the party moves through the coun­try over the course of sev­eral days.

The ‘prob­lem’ with Songkran is that peo­ple party sev­eral days with THROWING WATER at peo­ple. Se­ri­ously, you can’t get out of your apart­ment for 10 min­utes with­out get­ting soak­ing wet…

Here are the pictures:

This is Pattaya’s Walk­ing Street at April 18, 2009, a few hours be­fore the of­fi­cial be­gin­ning of Songkran. The wa­ter is not from rain, but from peo­ple partying.

No mat­ter whether you’re pedes­trian, rid­ing a mo­tor­bike or dri­ving a car, you’ll al­ways get wet.
Ready – Fire – Aim…

Wait­ing for the next victim…

Well, let’s cool her down a bit…

No mercy. With ded­i­ca­tion she pours ap­prox­i­mately 1.5 litres right into the poor guy’s face. :-)

Open win­dow in your car?
Bad idea…

Party-time.

Back in my room late at night. The white stuff is some­thing peo­ple put in your face wish­ing you a ‘happy new year’.

Next day, April 19, the party con­tin­ues on beach road with thou­sands of peo­ple partying.

A closer look at beach road. No cars al­lowed today.

What? Even the monks throw water…

Woah, Bad Ass Warrior….

One of my Ger­man friends and 3 strange strangers un­der ATTACK!!!

Look closely - the air is filled with water.

We ar­rived at a save spot.

Mak­ing pic­tures wasn’t easy at Songkran, be­cause I had to watch out for wa­ter com­ing at me (and the cam­era) all the time.

I’ll be back in Thai­land in late June, July and Au­gust; I’m sure to post new pic­tures then.

The moral of this post: if you want to travel or work from the nicest places on earth, make sure to build an in­ter­net busi­ness. It’ll give you all the free­dom you long for.