nick’s (n)-line life

Happy Songkran everyone! สวัสดีปีใหม่ Songkran (สง�?รานต์) is the New Year festival celebrated in Thailand & Laos as well as, less ostentatiously, in Burma and Cambodia. In Thailand (and increasingly in Laos) the festival is marked by massive public water fights. Funnily enough, the water fights originally grew from people "sprinkling" water on each other! It's about this time of year I start sulking about having to stay in the UK to work and revise for summer exams when there's one of the biggest parties in the world taking place across several countries in SE Asia. There's only one time since I was 15 when I didn't have summer exams and that one time I was working in Malaysia and unable to go check it out: bummer, man! If I ever manage to finish all of my university education and get a job then this is going to be an absolutely must holiday-period (although I hear that Thailand and Laos are both already completely overrun by Westerners at this time of year.. oh well). Manager.com are offering advice on the best places to visit although Chaing Mai is generally popular. ThailandPhotos.net Songkran officially runs from 13-15 April but inevitably, the country is tied up with the festival for weeks. As usual, at this point people tend to point out that the festival is accompanied by a wave of road and alcohol induced injuries and apparently this year is no exception with 30 killed in Thailand on just the first day! Ouch!

Road accidents have claimed 254 lives and more than 3,000 injuries during the first six days of the Songkran festival, while three provinces recorded more deaths than projected. [ read in full ]

A lot of information on the festival is available at ThaiFestivalBlog.com. Have a good time everyone and anyone lucky enough to be in Thailand for the festival let me know how it goes. :)