The Songkran Festival is an annual event that had previously been held according to Thai lunar calendar. The festival is now annually commemorated for three days! 2019 edition comes up between April 13th and the 15th, 2019. This festival also doubles as the nation’s traditional New Year’s Eve celebration
Since April hottest month of the year, the celebration of water is appropriate on many levels of the festival. Nevertheless, the festival is not always observed in the same traditional way. In the big cities, people take to the cities to celebrate the festival while bigger cities like Bangkok organize water fights and street events. The most popular street party in Bangkok is known as Silom which takes place on a 4 kilometres long street.
The party is huge with thousands of people partaking in the water fights using water guns, balloons and any other containers you can lay your hand on as long as it can hold water. Sellers of water guns, food, toys, and drinks also troop to the street to sell their wares. The days are also declared a public holiday for everyone in the country. A lot of people use this opportunity to visit their family members and friends. Apart from the water rituals and street carnivals, the Thais also participate in other activities during the week. Some use this period to visit the temples while some get involved in an annual spring cleaning of their houses.
Many Thai families rise on the second day of Songkran festival to partake in traditional Buddhist rituals.
They also give alms to Buddhist monks as well as taking part in ‘Bathing the Buddha image’ ritual. During this ritual, sincere followers will empty water over the statues of Buddha in their household as well as their native temple.
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