3 Murders As Songkran In Thailand Turns Ugly

[heiwa]

Last year, i had a cataract removed from one eye on Songkran day at Bumrungrad. Unable to find a taxi i walked to my hotel at the bottom of soi4. Despite the fact that my eye was bandaged and padded, the idiots still threw water into my face. This is the real problem, no one seems able to use common sense, they seem to go straight for the face.

You surely don't expect to find much common sense in Thailand, do you? How long have you been here?

For the last time I hope - they are not going to change for us! Farang really seem to have hearing problems. If you are having an operation have it done in Malaysia. You are the problem .And people who get poisoned from drinking coffee and die are the problem because everyone knows the poisoning problem in Thailand, Chiang Mai, Hat Yai etc. Next you will be telling me a chair is really a desk. What is is. Anywhere in the world - understand the environment and adjust. Thailand is a very special environment and that is why I am in Laos - I am not arguing with you - It's just that you are not being realistic. Anyone with any sense would not be driving in Thailand around Songkran - why volunteer for death or being disabled? Edited April 23, 2012 by heiwa

[dunkin2012]

so i can't go out without anything.(i'm a real man)

[jayjayjayjay]

Songkran has escalated from a fun and relatively respectful event it used to be to the aggressive, no-fun hazard is has become in many parts of the country today. Before the usual crowd retorts that if I don't like it I can leave the country and go back to my own country, may I point out I've probably been here a lot longer (a quarter century) than the vast majority of those that bring up that lame argument. It is possible for a farang to have a legitimate appreciation for what this country's culture has to offer and at the same time to object to how one of it's traditions seems to have gone seriously off the rails. This gives no excuse for a bunch of tourists to tell them to leave. Besides, there are a lot of Thais who don't exactly enjoy being assaulted - you want to tell them to leave too?

I read a piece in the Thai airways inflight magazine. It totally contradicts your statement here. An elderly lady describes her relatives from DingDang attacking war-style their family home in Silom each year. Water fights, fun and lots of aggression ended in injury each year, but they loved it. I too have been here for as long as you. Songkran has not changed, I've celebrated from the north to south, east to west, and now go to Chiangmai every year. Justify your statement! I think it might be you've just got too old to enjoy it like the young do with such aplomb. Everybody to there own, but if you can't deal with it, I have not problem saying you should leave.

Sorry if my memory doesn't correspond exactly to yours or people who write for inflight magazines. I remember it being all water pistols and small pails of water, not the water cannons you see these days. I had a few buckets thrown at me while riding past on my motorbike, but I usually had fair warning of what was coming my way. As for me being too old to enjoy it, I still go to punk rock shows and make my way through seething mosh pits on a regular basis - it still seems less hazardous and more respectful than a Songkran celebration in certain areas of Bangkok these days!

The point has little or nothing to do with the inflight magazine. Personally after a quarter of a century of Songkran's I find them no different today than back then. What I find is people get older, less accepting and cynical. If you don't like it then stay away as you do. However, drawing a picture of equating it to a Harlem backstreet at 5am is stupid, that what forum ppl do here.

[vijer]

I agree with a previous poster, these kind of celebrations need to be confined to designated areas, so as to allow those who wish to go about their normal business to do so in peace-like the man who was on his way to attend a funeral.

Yes he was going about his business, got a little water thrown on him "oh my gosh I will never dry out, what will the other funeral goers say!". So he confronts the reveler and takes time to have words with the reveler (drunk likely) and gets beat about the head until he dies. So if he had just accepted that he got a little wet and went about his business he would still be alive.

I'm not blaming the funeral goer mind you, as I am prone to confront people, not for getting me wet, that is stupid, but for things like pulling over at the beginning of my soi and dumping a couple sqm of trash in the ditch. But my wife won't let me do it, because she is afraid something like this will happen to me too. (And she is Thai, bless her heart, Thai's accept the shit around them without complaining.) I guess she is right.