Happy New Year...Again!

We've been on a break from school this past week, and will be for another week, in part for the Songkran holiday. (Many Thai schools are actually in the middle of their summer break right now.) Songkran is celebrated in Thailand from April 13 to April 15 as the Thai new year. This will be the third new year that I will have experienced already this year: January 1 under the Gregorian calendar, the lunar new year, and now the Thai new year. Thailand uses the Buddhist calendar, which is 543 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar, so it is actually the year 2557 in Thailand right now. We are truly living in the future here!

I've been told that Songkran is one of the biggest and most favored holiday in Thailand. A well-known tradition of Songkran is the throwing of water on others. People will roam the streets with containers of ice water and water guns to soak others. I've been told that the Thai people especially love surprising the farangs and soaking them from top to bottom. Many streets will be closed off for people, ice trucks, and fire engines to partake in these water festivities.

Besides these water-related activities, people also will smear talc powder or paste on their own and others' faces and bodies as a blessing for the new year. They also may go pay respect to their elders and other family members, or go to a wat to pray.

However, even though this will be our first Songkran, we won't be in Thailand to celebrate it in true Thai style. We decided to leave for a couple of reasons. First, it occurred to us that, with Songkran being such a major holiday, our party-animal neighbors may very well be throwing a days-long party, which would make staying here impossible. We were also advised by other Thai people to leave the country because it will be pretty out of control here with many, many people getting drunk and driving drunk. And last, but not least, we wanted to take advantage of this long break to check off another place on our travel list.

Last Friday, on the last day of school before this break, there was an all-school celebration of Songkran at our school. Students from all sections performed dances and flicked water on the staff and student body. Their costumes were gorgeous and they did an amazing job! Happy New Year!

 

Fun in the Summer Sun!

Being on break, we finally had the time the other day to do something we had wanted to do for a while -- spend the day at an amusement/water park not far from here. It was my son's first experience with a real amusement park, and since we're in the middle of the hot season, being drenched with water sounded like a great idea.

For around $4 for my son and around $16 each for my husband and me, we had access to the entire place for as long as we wanted. We got there as it opened around mid-morning, so we practically had the place to ourselves until around noon. There were no lines or crowds to fight, and we leisurely wandered around and had the rides to ourselves. We did all the non-water rides first, before the temperature turned scorchingly hot, and went on the water rides and in the pools later so we could stay "cool." There were some rides that my son couldn't go on because of his height, but there was still enough for him to do. It turned out to be a really fun, but still relaxing, day!

The entrance.

Just two pigs walking around...

A two-story carousel.

Entrance to the kid-friendly rides.

???

Random, yet normal.

Area with kiddie rides.

We took a Jeep ride through this area, where mechanical dinosaurs roared to life and cavemen greeted us as we went by.

This mechanical elephant squirted water at us.

Another dinosaur area with mechanical dinosaurs.

Only here would a sign be required to tell visitors that no dogs are allowed.

An African adventure on a boat, with more mechanical animals and a few not-quite-accurate depictions of Africans. The last scene of Africans burning a hunter at the stake was a bit surprising.

My son's first flume ride. So thrilling! A body dryer for after the ride, not that it was necessary with the burning heat.

The water park area, with a huge swimming pool, kid-sized and adult-sized water slides, and the world's biggest wave pool. Unfortunately, the water wasn't as cold as we wanted because of the heat, but this was still our favorite area.

People here LOVE taking selfies. This woman spent about 20 minutes trying different poses.

We actually saw lots of people wearing rented swimsuits! It's like renting underwear! Yuck!

This scary-looking ride was actually advertised as a "family" ride.

We were able to go up this tower in the circular thingy and get a nice view of the area and the amusement park.