Songkran, Thai New Year, has been and gone. For a few days the island was packed with holidaying Thai families escaping from Bangkok for a few days by the sea. However, this year seemed a bit more subdued than in previous years as authorities around Thailand had been told to try to keep a lid on the number of accidents and amount of alcohol consumed. ( That didn’t do any good – the road accident death toll was up from last year at just under 400 deaths during the Songkran Holiday Week – so about the same as in many warzones around the world. )
Here on Koh Chang the noticeable difference was that there were far fewer people riding around in the back of pick up trucks hurling iced water over anyone in their vicinity, plus, after the initial excitement on the first day of water throwing, 13th April, things seemed to die down on 14th & 15th quite a lot. The main organised festivities centered around Klong Prao temple – which had the usual temple fair every night. A heady mix of street food, market stalls, loud music and monks. Well worth going to if you haven’t experienced one before but if you have then they tend to be very samey after a while.
Salakphet Temple decided to do things differently and organise their own traditional Songran on 17 – 19 April to allow people to experience both the water throwing west coast Songkran with the more laid back East coast way of doing things. I had to go to Bangkok on 17th so missed that unfortunately.
Some photos below. Some of which I took and some pilfered from various Facebook pages.
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