In the tropical jungles of northern Thailand lies the ancient walled city of Chang Mai. Inside the crumbling walls is a labyrinth of busy streets and narrow alleys, lined with bars, temples and massage parlours.
Jenny and I were creeping along one of these alleys, moving quickly through the shade of a high stone wall. Jenny was up front, slinking past an old Thai woman folding laundry. Her arm was stiff by her side, pistol pointed at the cobblestones. I was bringing up the rear, my rifle at the ready.
Without warning, a backpacker in a Hawaiian shirt darted out from an alcove and doused Jenny with a bucket of water – SPLOOSH! She spun around, her face frozen with disgust, “Eww! He splashed me with moat water! It went in my mooouth!!”
This is a taste of Songkran, Thailand’s New Year’s celebration. For hundreds of years, Thais have practiced the annual tradition of pouring water over statues of the Buddha, to signify purification and the washing away of bad luck. Over time, locals started dribbling water on one another’s foreheads, and somehow, this has evolved into the largest water fight on the planet. Millions of tourists pour into Thailand each April to participate in this wet and wild five day festival. Hotels and guesthouses are booked solid and the streets are lined with pop-up stalls selling a dizzying array of water-based weaponry.
My gun was ridiculous. It was some sort of off-brand, Chinese Super-Duper Soaker with multiple air chambers and an enormous water reservoir. It was as powerful as a pressure washer and would never pass safety standards back home. To my dismay, Jenny had chosen a Winnie-the-Pooh squirt gun that had all the velocity of a soap dispenser.
Back in the alley, the American frat-bro in the Hawaiian shirt was standing over my drenched girlfriend, chuckling to himself. I took aim and squeezed the trigger, sending a stinging jet of revenge hissing through the air. It caught the brim of his Yankees cap, sending it flipping off his head. The second shot zapped him in the neck. “OW! Dude! That really hurts!”
Running from the scene of the crime, Jenny and I spilled out of the alleyway, into a raging river of people. The scene was pure chaos; a tangled mass of wet humans, screaming, shouting and shooting criss-crossing jets of water through the air like Silly String. The street was bumper to bumper with pickup trucks, each carrying a Thai family huddled around a garbage can filled with water and a giant block of ice. They scooped out the water with soup ladles and enamel coffee mugs, slopping freezing cold water on the people below. Seething around the trucks were scores of drunk tourists, each armed with a Super Soaker, picking off Thais like fish in a barrel. It hardly seemed fair, but the Thais were good natured about their clear disadvantage.
Thai people are incredibly warm and hospitable, but I was starting to get the feeling that they were just tolerating us. As a tourist, I felt like I’d never be able to step outside the role of the “guest” because the Thais never broke character from playing “the gracious host”. It felt like there was a gap between us.
Later that night, during the evening cease-fire, Jenny and I showered and left our guesthouse in clean, dry clothes. We were relieved not to be soaking wet for a change, and excited to have some dinner – trust me, nothing tastes quite so good as Thai food from Thailand.
As we strolled down the alley, I was startled to find a little Thai girl blocking our path. She stood in an aggressive fighting stance, her fierce eyes locked on mine. In her hands was a small red bucket, the kind children use to build sandcastles. It was full of water.
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hands, “it’s nighttime! The water fight is over!” The little girl swung her bucket and a frozen pane of water, like a shimmering liquid ghost, arced through the air – SPLOOSH!
I stood there motionless and dripping while the two girls roared with laughter. I didn’t think it was funny at all.
Creative Nonfiction by Drew Clarke 