Fighting Water

I don't think I could have picked a worse picture of myself, but I had to post it because it sums up our day in Bangkok the best.




The wonderful world of Angkor Wat is now behind us. Steve and I crossed the border back into Tailand, Bangkok to be exact. We had read that Tailand celebrates their new years april 13th- 15th with a gigantic water fight on the popular khaosin road. We got in the night of the 12th and a bit of water gun shooting had began, but nothing major. Little squirts here and there. The next day we got an early start to go check out some things that we had planned on visiting, but we never got there. We got no further than one block and we were soaked. It's super hot in Bangkok, so our clothes being moist with water instead of sweat seemed glorious. We canceled our plans to visit dry places, bought two squirt guns (one which steve dropped and broke after a total of 15 seconds), filled them up, sat outside at a restaurant, drank beer, and shot people. This was only the begining. The water fight also includes people carrying little buckets full of wet clay, which when walking past you, they smear on your face, in your hair, on your arms, even your clothes. The entire day all we did was walk around. We drank, we shot people, people shot us, people dumped buckets of ice cold water over our heads, people smeared clay in just about every crevis that exists on my face. We had a blast and we slept very well.
However, the next day we became prisioners in our guesthouse. There was no way of leaving without getting soaked and clayified, unless you left before 9am, and even then we found out that it didn't matter what street you were on in the city, this is how the Tai people say happy new year. We decided to leave the wetness of Bangkok and head north to Chang Mai. We got out without being harmed, but wanted to cry when we arrived in Chang Mai. We quickly found out that it was the same thing. Our first day in this town, Steve and I had to go take care of some traveling business, we had to leave and walk around. We were soaked instantly and couldn't even get the things we needed to get done because either they were closed because of the holiday or we couldn't go in because of our state of appearance. I was trying so hard to be positive and have fun with this celebration with the attitude, if you can't beat them, join them, but it got to the point where after 3 days of people dumping water and clay on me, I just couldn't take it. Steve held his patience as well, until while we were stopped and looking at our map to figure out where we were, some ass dumped a bucket of water on him, of course ruining the map. When we finally got back to our guesthouse, we were watching the news and found out the prime minister planned on extending the holiday due to the protests that have been taking place. I felt my face burning. I did not desire another day of either sitting inside or a day of being soaked for 12 hours straight.
Luckily, the water fight has ended and we have been able to go on with our travels. At the current moment we are having lunch and drinking soda pop at "pirates cove." where when I ordered my selection off of the menu the woman told me that they did not have that, so I chose something else, they didn't have that either. I asked if they were serving food at the time. She replied by saying I couldn't have what I ordered because she didn't know how to make it. I love Tailand.