Wet and Wild - Songkran

*Disclaimer** This post was done in about 5 minutes because we have a bus waiting on us! Sorry for the chaos of this blog!**

After a 12 hour day of traveling and near death experiences, we finally made it back to Bangkok from Cambodia. We had a brief stay in Bangkok before it was time for us to fly up to Chiang Mai for Songkran – the Thailand New-year.

Delicious

Bryan and Megan, Mike’s friends from Florida who have also have been living in Phuket teaching English, met up with us in Bangkok to sightsee for the day before flying out. There isn’t really anything worth reporting about Bangkok except that I got eaten by bed bugs for the first time in my life and we got scammed by Tuk Tuk drivers. One of the Tuk Tuk drivers promised to drive all 5 of us around and show us multiple temples and Buddha statues.  He took us to the first temple, we said our chants to Buddha, and we left. Our driver asked us since he had given us such a good deal on the ride around town, before he took us to the next temple, could we do him a favor by stopping in a suit shop for a few minutes to look around because if he brings us there he would get coupons for free gas. We agreed to help him out. Then after the first suit shop he wanted to stop by another. We again agreed to help the man out. Mike and I ended up buying silk ties and Megan got a pair of custom made pants. After the suit shops he asked if we could just make one more stop, because after all it was on the way to the next temple, and we again said ok. The final stop was at jewelry store and of course, I couldn’t resist and bought two pairs of earrings. After all the stops we hopped back in our Tuk Tuk and thought we were headed to the temples. Come to find out we were actually headed back to the same place he had picked us from the start. He dropped us off and pointed us in the direction of a temple and said he had to go! So basically we paid to get shuffled around town and spend money. The scam worked. We ended up walking around Bangkok and then it was time to head to the airport. As for the bed bugs bites, they are getting better.

We flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai to celebrate the Thailand New Year, Songkran, which is the biggest holiday of the year and the people in Northern Thailand know how to celebrate it best. Everyone gets off work for four days and almost everything is closed. Songkran is essentially a huge water fight that goes on for 10 days in certain areas of Thailand. Each day during Songkran swarms of people line the streets and pile into truck beds with water guns, buckets, hoses, and garbage cans full of FREEZING cold water. This is said to be the hottest time of the year so the water fights are a celebration and way to take a break from the heat and cool off. On paper, this seems like a fun and fantastic holiday to be a part of. For myself, day one was really fun and each day after that has gotten worse and worse. You literally cannot go outside without getting soaking wet and shivering cold. We were in Chiang Mai for the first day and then took a bus to Chiang Rai to continue the celebration. We went to Chiang Rai because Megan’s cousin is dating a Thai girl whose family lives there. During our stint in Chiang Rai Katie and I did a lot of sitting in the room because we were not feeling the water fights anymore!

Yesterday we came back to Chiang Mai and on the way from the bus port to our hotel, with all of our luggage and belongings, we got soaked and the Tuk Tuk driver was loving every minute of it. It was miserable. I am ready for this holiday to be over.

Today we are heading off to the Elephant Nature Park/ volunteer program for the week. I have never been more excited to work with elephants and shovel poop. This is going to be an experience of a lifetime!!

Stay dry,

Whitney

*In no particular order, because of time constraint*