Songkran

This year's best Songkran photo. Loopy Thai, wet babe and hovering in the background, like an evil imperialist spectre, the sinister form of Ronald MacDonald. It sums up everything that has gone wrong with Bangkok, one of the most unpleasant cities in Asia.


So, last week the happy Thais celebrated their old New Year festival of Songkran. Supposedly a religious festival about cleansing and renewal but now a ghastly three to five day session of binge drinking and assault with filthy canal water. Triple P has been in Bangkok during Songkran when it was over 100 degrees and the streets were full of manic locals and, even worse, foreigners joining in in the "fun" (mainly equally drunken Australians).

Its one local festival that is well worth avoiding (actually, nearly all local festivals are well worth avoiding) especially as every year there is thousands of pounds worth of damage, people killed and permanently disabled due to accidents and thousands treated for nasty eye infections caused by said filthy canal water. Never mind at least they livened it up even more this year by throwing in a few anti-government riots too.

Its a lot of effort just to see a few wet women.