Songkran workout

April 12

Wake up to the wonderfully familiar breakfast courtesy our Khaosan Park Resort hotel.  We have become friends with several of the staff here including Ohm who works the morning shift and Tri the manager.   We have a great individually prepared eggs and fruit and then head out to survey Khaosan Road for the water activities.  Not too crazy yet, we the intensity is mounting.  There are barricades in the streets and a pavilion and tent are being set up at the other end of the street.  We are told that the Royal Family will be visiting later in the day and there are many preparations underway for their visit.  We check out the water gun inventory, comparing prices and quality, before settling on two pretty powerful guns for the boys and a smaller “Lilo & Stich” version for Annie! We are invited to go to the temple with Ohm and Dada and we jump at the chance to be shown an insider’s view of both the nearby temple as well as Buddhism firsthand.  We make our way through the back alleys and come upon a temple just around the corner in our neighborhood.  We enter and are shown how to light the three incense sticks, one candle and one lotus blossom.  The three incense sticks are placed into a vase and once you place them you give a small bow with your hands clasped in front of your chest.  Then the candle is lit and glued down to the platform and the flower is placed into the vase at the feet of Buddha.  We then circle around to another platform where we are given a small bowl of water that has flower blossoms floating inside of it.  We take off our shoes, mount a platform, say a prayer and pour the water onto the golden stature of Buddha.  Afterward, we make our way to a tent where there are three monks in their robes seated and we kneel down, bowing three times and they shake holy water onto us to bless us with good luck in the coming year.  Then we make our way to the actual temple and remove our shoes and enter in a bowing position.  We kneel in front of the monk and the statues of Buddha and bow three times, make our way to the monk who gives us some water to keep for the coming year and then we bow again three times and leave the temple.  We walk around the very quiet enclosure for a while and come upon a sand area where we make a small “temple” in the sand and place a flag in the middle of our “temple” again representing good luck for the future.  As we are walking up the stair to the Stupa, we encounter a Thai celebrity and we photograph him with Dada and Ohm.  We finish by walking around the complex and return to our back entrance at Khaosan Park.  We get changed into our “play” clothes and come back downstairs around lunchtime for the first signs of water fighting.  Within the hour, we are in full swing.  The streets are becoming crowded with kids of all ages (literally 8-80years old) and no one is pared the drenching.  One surprise element is that they are lugging in on trolleys these massive blocks of ice and then plunging them into large garbage buckets to cool the water down to near arctic temperatures.  One blast of that frigid water and you will definitely squeal like a pig!  The boys are in heaven…..many hours later and countless water logged towels…..and they are still at it.  The remainder of the day goes on like this pretty much non-stop. By 6:00, the street is packed and there is no point even trying to navigate through the masses. We do wait alongside the barricades in hopes of getting a glimpse of the royal family and after about an hour we are rewarded with an amazing view of the side of their cars…..wow that was special! Luckily, we are getting to know the endless network of back alleys that comprise the majority of Bangkok and we are able to sneak out the back entrance and snake through the alleys to procure some freshly cooked food for dinner.  We find a small alleyway café serving a wonderful menu along with a “Skewer” cart with fresh grilled meats on a stick and a fruit vendor.  We are set.  After a hearty meal, we retire back to our lair for more movies and trying to block out the ever increasing noise from Khaosan Road.