If you don't live here you might not even know what Songkran is so I'll briefly spell that out. It is the celebration for the Thai New Year and also the end of hot season. While this festival has roots in more traditional ceremonies, over time it has become a multi-day water war that is either something you find to be a lot of fun, or something that annoys the hell out of you after day one.
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Massive parties can be expected all across the country and here in Chiang Mai we have traditionally had one of the largest ones extending as long as 10 days. In my mind this is too long and I get irritated after day number 2 or so and will refuse to go downtown for the remaining 8 days unless I absolutely must. The reason is that people are basically hammered drunk for a week and they don't even pay any attention to whether or not you want to be soaking wet, they just spray everyone everywhere. It doesn't matter if you are a businessman in a suit, a child, someone carrying a laptop, or even a police officer: Everyone gets soaked.
The only people that seem to be off-limits are the elderly, and it is good that there is at least some respect for that.
I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday because like I said, after day 1 or 2 I don't actually want to be soaking wet all the time. After day 2 I will get a bit upset at people that are throwing water at me unless it is little kids, then I let them hit me because they are kids so let's let them have their fun.
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I would imagine that this holiday would have appealed to me immensely as a child and while I am not judging, it seems to me that Thai children don't really get many chances to totally let loose for a number of reasons such as what I consider to be excessive education, lack of safety as far as streets are concerned, and relative poverty.
The government is currently mulling over whether or not they are going to allow Songkran in major areas this year because as you can tell from the two above images and thousands of others like them, this results in people being in very close proximity to one another over extended periods of time. Thailand is still on the fence as far as whether or not they want to be afraid of Covid anymore or not and are at a crossroads of sorts because they want to open up for tourism but are also kind of throwing a fear campaign out there about increasing case numbers to the public.
Here is one thing you need to understand about Thai people though: You can't just tell them that one of their most beloved holidays is cancelled. They aren't going to listen. Some people might, but for the most part and especially outside of major metro areas, they will just ignore the orders. Last year for example the world was a lot more Covid centric than it is now and Songkran festivals were banned nation-wide. They still happened though, they just weren't in the city centers where they would traditionally be held. People instead did it in their own subdistricts or neighborhoods and the police just kind of left everyone alone.
What are they going to do? Put a bunch of little kids in handcuffs?
I don't think the population will listen outside of Bangkok or maybe downtown Chiang Mai if the government says that it is not allowed this year but I also don't want the government to over-react if a bunch of "new cases" emerge after Songkran. At the moment Thailand is SO CLOSE to returning to normal and scrapping mask mandates and I would hate for the government to have a reason to go back on this. As it stands now they are reducing quarantines and there is talk about totally eliminating all entry requirements outside of maybe proof of vaccination starting on June 1st. If the public doesn't listen to the government if they cancel Songkran I fear the government may punish the population by extending this mandates further as a consequence.
If they cancel it, I'll do what I was going to do anyway: Stay in my neighborhood, let the little kids throw water at me, and drink beer with my friends over the 5 day holiday. Simple.