The Thai New Year (Thai:Songkran)

The Thai New Year (Thai: สงกรานต์ Songkran) is celebrated every year on 13 April to 15 April. It is also celebrated in Laos (called pi mai lao or 'Lao New Year' in Lao), Cambodia, Myanmar (where it is called Thingyan), and by the Dai people in Yunnan, China. Sri Lanka also celebrates a similar festival called Sinhalese and Tamil New Year on the same dates. The same date is celebrated widely throughout the Indian subcontinent, albeit based on the astrological event of the sun beginning its northward journey.

The date of the festival was originally set by astrological calculation, but it is now fixed. If these days fall on a weekend, the missed days off are taken on the weekdays immediately following. Songkran falls in the hottest time of the year in Thailand, at the end of the dry season. Until 1888 the Thai New Year was the beginning of the year in Thailand; thereafter 1 April was used until 1940. 1 January is now the beginning of the year. The traditional Thai New Year has been a national holiday since then.



The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with containers of water or water guns, or post themselves at the side of roads with a garden hose and drench each other and passersby. This, however, was not always the main activity of this festival. Songkran was traditionally a time to visit and pay respects to elders, including family members, friends and neighbors.

Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran may also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give food to monks. They may also cleanse Buddha images from household shrines as well as Buddha images at monasteries by gently pouring water mixed with a Thai fragrance (น้ำอบไทย) over them. It is believed that doing this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. In many cities, such as Chiang Mai, the Buddha images from all of the city's important monasteries are paraded through the streets so that people can toss water at them, ritually 'bathing' the images, as they pass by on ornately decorated floats. In northern Thailand, people may carry handfuls of sand to their neighborhood monastery in order to recompense the dirt that they have carried away on their feet during the rest of the year. The sand is then sculpted into stupa-shaped piles and decorated with colorful flags.

Some people make New Year resolutions - to refrain from bad behavior, or to do good things. Songkran is a time for cleaning and renewal. Besides washing household Buddha images, many Thais also take this opportunity to give their home a thorough cleaning.

The throwing of water originated as a way to pay respect to people, by gently pouring a small amount of lustral water on other people’s hands or over a shoulder as a sign of respect. Among young people the holiday evolved to include dousing strangers with water to relieve the heat, since April is the hottest month in Thailand (temperatures can rise to over 100°F or 40°C on some days). This has further evolved into water fights and splashing water over people riding in vehicles.

Nowadays, the emphasis is on fun and water-throwing rather than on the festival's spiritual and religious aspects, which sometimes prompts complaints from traditionalists. In recent years there have been calls to moderate the festival to lessen the many alcohol-related road accidents as well as injuries attributed to extreme behavior such as water being thrown in the faces of traveling motorcyclists.

The water is meant as a symbol of washing all of the bad away and is sometimes filled with fragrant herbs.

Khaosan road or Khao San road (Thai: ถนนข้าวสาร) is a short road in central Bangkok, Thailand. It is located in the Banglamphu neighborhood (Phra Nakhon district) about 1 km north from the Grand Palace with Wat Phra Kaew. It has developed over the years into probably the most profound worldwide example of a "backpackers' ghetto", with relatively cheap accommodation compared to other areas of central Bangkok. The accommodation varies from 'mattress in a box' style hostels, to full Western-standard luxury.

Many tourists use Khaosan road as their base for exploring the rest of Thailand as there are many direct coaches from the street to virtually all major tourist destinations in Thailand, from Chiang Mai in the North to Ko Pha Ngan in the South. Many visitors will also take advantage of the abundance of relatively cheap travel agents to arrange visas and transport to surrounding countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, though many (if not most) of these travel agents are scams of some sort, and travelers would do themselves wise to use Thai public buses instead.

Crafts, paintings, clothes, pirate CDs, DVDs, fake educational diplomas, fake driver's licenses, food, second hand books as well as many items useful to backpackers are among the common goods traded along the road.

Khaosan road has in recent years also become popular among local people, especially artists and art students. The road hosts a number of pubs and bars, where people of many nationalities meet and discuss their travels. Khaosan and the streets nearby are also Bangkok's center of dancing, partying and splashing water during Thai New Year (Songkran festival) on April 13 to April 15.

It is one of Bangkok's most vibrant streets, host to people from around the world. One Thai writer described the road as "a short road that has the longest dream in the world." The street certainly attracts some bizarre characters. Any visit to Bangkok is incomplete without a people-watching beer on Th Khaosan, an experience that could only be compared to a visit to a zoo; some consider it has degenerated into a tourist ghetto.

Khao san means 'raw rice' in Thai. Before it became a tourist hotspot, the street was a major rice market for Bangkok.