The moistest Sunday on record — Songkran

I am dressed in a pink floral Hawaiian shirt, the sleeves crudely cut off with a knife, my face caked in a thick, beige crust. This is Songkran. The Thai celebration of the arrival of a new year and a festival of cleansing, rejuvenation, and rebirth, symbolised by nation wide water fights on an immense scale.

The streets are alive, the veins of the city awash with the bodies of an eternal stream of revellers, the sweltering midday heat doused by the icy contents of water guns, hoses and buckets raining down upon the crowds. When it isn’t water, the locals stroke your face with a range of clay like concoctions mixed presumably with something akin to talcum powder. They seem to be particularly fixated by facial hair, pointing their friends in my direction before descending on me in a flurry of sticky, stroking fingers.

Never have I been touched by so many people in one day, or possibly ever. All manner of individuals delighted at the opportunity to stroke the Westerner – perhaps it brings luck? Young children and mothers, boys and girls, the elderly and the adolescent, beautiful women and any number of questionable lady boys. If I were to be walking down the street at home and I was approached by a rather large bloke with pristinely applied makeup and denim short shorts so petite as to turn his fleshy legs into rotund strings of sausages who proceeded to rub my chest vigorously before posing for a picture with me, I feel like I might take issue, possibly. In Songkran on the other hand I find myself laughing hysterically and throwing my arm around him (her?) as I grin helplessly back at the camera.

In a country in the midst of the dry season, so utterly parched by the searing sun, the volume of water deposited on the tarmac is quite incredible and yet, the feeling is that no level of drought could interfere with the festivities. Indeed, I don’t believe I have ever seen so many faces so alive with carefree, unadulterated pleasure. The joy is infectious, bestowing a sense of blissful intoxication – this is the true meaning of carefree. The fantastical scene was immaculately highlighted by a stream of extremely dubious Thai rock bands, playing everything from an absurd heavy metal cover of Shakira’s Waka Waka to a horribly shaky version of Queen’s We Will Rock You – Freddie Mercury eat your heart out.

As the breathless day fades into frantic darkness, we fight our way through the chaotic streets, closed to vehicles and awash with the remains of the watery conflict as bars use up the last of their chilling water, blasting us with fire hoses without remorse. After a rather moist mile, we piled into the back of a truck, foolishly thinking we’d reached a place of safety – how wrong we were. Driving along the highway was an utterly surreal experience. Pickup trucks loaded to breaking point with twelve teenagers and a barrel of water - the springs of the vehicle fighting to keep the chassis from the wheels - careered in every direction, their riders hollering with abandon and hurling water in every direction. Yet more trucks are stationary in the inside lane, blaring dance music from vast speakers, their human cargo crawling over the road like ants, jumping at the slightest opportunity to ambush a rival gang, dancing wildly without concern for the traffic. The scene resembles some sort of military take over, a breathless riot, utterly devoid of order and very much beyond control, a perfect, beautiful storm of human pleasure quite unlike anything I have yet had the pleasure of experiencing.