When Scandinavians celebrate New Year’s Eve, it is usually with family and friends with delicious food and champagne. As the clock reaches midnight, people walk outside to enjoy spectacular views of fireworks and cheer each other for a happy new year.
But then you reach a beautiful destination like Thailand and find out that they have their own New Year, called Songkran Festival which takes place each April and continues for 3 days. Imagine that instead of dressing up for New Year’s Eve, as most of us do in Scandinavia, you see families crammed into the back of pickup trucks, chugging along in bumper-to-bumper traffic and squirting water at other vehicles and pedestrians. It is a huge battlefield where people are like warriors, using guns, super-soakers, hoses, buckets, garbage cans and anything else they can get their hands on in order to disperse their ammunition.
ScandAsia Vikings
This year ScandAsia were proud to have organized a trip to Khao Sarn Road with fellow Scandinavians and few other nationalities to fight against thousands of other people and their guns. When it came to Thais versus Scandinavians, we were hopelessly outnumbered. Still, we fought on, like true vikings!
It was a bright and hot day as we set off to Khao Sarn, fully prepared with our guns. The fun already began as we were on our way with a tuk-tuk.
It was still early when we reached Khao Sarn Road. The stall owners selling guns and equipments were getting everything ready for the coming day. There were also bigger companies such as AIS and Air Asia which set up their own booths for some water fun.
To prepare ourselves for a long day of soaking random people in water, we sat down for a few drinks at Khao Sarn Center, Pub and Restaurant. Afterwards our drinks were replaced by guns and huge grins as people of all ages started shooting at us.
The whole fun was to shoot and get shot without having to worry about anything but getting wet.
Besides a few faulty water guns and minor bruises on our fingers, the day went better than planned. Being absolutely drenched was a great way to cool down in the Bangkok heat too. It certainly beats regular air-conditioning any day of the week.
In the end, we all retreated from that soggy battlefield for some great food and few more drinks at the Long Table Restaurant, 25 stories above the ground, in a much drier environment with some excellent views over Bangkok.
