Pattaya Songkran Festival 2009

The religious parts of it, mixed with propitiatory rain-wishing rites are not forgotten, but mostly people intensely revel in the fun of it. It is also a period when Buddha images are cleansed and Elders are being paid respect.

Local residence and foreign tourists were seen in their most colorful gears and gigantic water guns already prepared for a full day of fight. People had put aside all of their worries even about the political crisis that just recently occurred. By the early afternoon people were seen, already two shades darker in skin, throwing, squirting, splashing, heaving, hurling, and dumping water fearlessly at each other. The people’s faces were covered in white powder, some were shivering from the ice cold water, and some were already wrinkly.