ELEVENEVELE 11:11: The city of Chiang Mai (Songkran 2014)

Setting out to plan the trip I really had no plans in mind. I just figured enough to book a one way to Bangkok and hit the ground running. I was going to burn it on both ends as long as I was still breathing. Plans meant constraints, and constraints were pretty much shackles at this point.

I did know I wanted to make it to Songkran. Every year starting April 13 Thailand celebrates its new years celebration. In sanskrit the word translates roughly to astrological passage. The holiday is very important to the Buddhist majority of Thailand as it marks a new beginning and a way to start clean and begin a new trip around the sun.

Just a wild scene

On the streets it is pandemonium. In what has to be the world's biggest water fight, businesses and people line every lane with buckets of ice cold water and load up the water guns and proceed to have the best time ever.

In Phuket they celebrate for one day/night. There is water everywhere you go and if you enjoy the craziness you hit up Patong and get buck, but you could be on a side road in central rural Thailand and some kid will pop out of the bushes with a bucket of water and proceed to soak you with the biggest smile on his face.

This kid would stand there all day

In Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) they go for five days straight. As Songkran got closer I kept hearing that was the place to be. They go harder, and longer than anyone else. I mulled over going up there for about .7 seconds before booking my flight for the next day.

The old and inner city of Chiang Mai is surrounded by a canal (think moat) and a brick wall. This moat provides the perfect water gun replenishing station for everyone to keep on soaking eachhother. For days. Hundreds of thousands of Thais and tourists flock to this hub and party their freakin asses off.

If this video doesn't work, click this link SONGKRAN

And we did that as well. The solid group of people that convened on the Bann Nana house hostel definitely enjoyed the odd cocktail . A good mix of Canadian, English, Belgian, and German. There was a bar district that saw its fair share of us during Songkran and it was insanity. On separate occasions I danced my ass off to drum and bass (a rare commodity over here), drank 4 buckets in one night, and broke up two fights (one resulting in a concussion). Alcohol and I have an abusive relationship, and it beats the crap out of me on the regular.