Happy Thai, Khmer, Lao and Burmese New Year from all at Experience Travel!
The three-day fesitval (Songkran in Thai, Chol Chnam Thmei in Khmer, Songkan in Lao, and Thingyan in Burmese) is the most joyous and festive period in the mainland Southeast Asian calendar. Typically this involves spectacular mass water fights: water is seen as a cleansing force and everybody joins in the festivities and gets wet, although it’s also a time for people to visit wats (temples) and pay respects to elder family members. Chiang Mai is famously has some of the most over-the-top celebrations, with people riding firetrucks and manning hoses to spray passers by and others waiting to ambush those who aren’t careful and plunge them into Chiang Mai’s central canal in good-humoured pranks.
It’s one of the most fun times of year to be in Southeast Asia, and the mass drenching of an entire population as can be witnessed in Thailand should definitely be on any avid traveller’s “must-see” list!
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