Bonus Photo (EIS Songkron festival)

Songkron

So I had my first experience with the Songkron holiday here in Thailand. Not sure what it all really means however I do know there is an aspect of respect and blessings from the elders and a whole lot of water. A huge component is playing water, or just plain ol getting soaked everywhere you go. On every street there are groups of people with buckets, hoses and water guns soaking everyone who passes by. If you travel you better take a taxi, no walking or open aired transport, because they don’t care they will soak you as you drive by on the motorcycle taxi (really not that safe). They don’t care if your old, if you have a baby, are carrying groceries or if your listening to your ipod, they will get you wet if you walk by or drive by. It is a cool holiday an was nice to experience and it’s cool to see little old ladies carrying water guns on the BTS even if you get wet while going to 7eleven. Here are some photos of the EIS Songkron program.

Photo of the colorful attire at the EIS Songkron festival.

The seniors getting blessings from the teachers.

A traditional dance and colorful costumes.

Some more getting around

So here is the MRT or the subway, and boy was it crowded. You can see on the bottom right I had to basically rest the phone on someone's head to take this photo. This is the only time we have used the MRT since moving here since it goes to places we usually don't go. Just another way of getting around.

Sea of red shirts

So you might have heard of the political unrest here in Bangkok, well don't worry everything is ok for us and we are far from the real action. However a couple of weeks ago we were on our way back for the Adventist hospital where we were getting shots for the kiddies and decided to head to do a little shopping not fully realizing that shopping district was one of the rallying places of the red shirts. When we got off the water taxi we soon saw the sea of red everywhere. It was a very interesting atmosphere more street party than political party and venders everywhere selling red items, we even got Kaiya a red clapper (safe there), of course all of this was before last weekends eruptions of tempers. It should be an interesting next couple of weeks in Bangkok, but once again we are in a safe area and see nothing really in our part of town, it really is more of an inconvenience for us because some of the things we want to do are closed due to the rally. Just wanted to share our day among the reds, grace and peace to you all.