When we were planning our trip to Thailand in April 2025, we were restricted to dates as we needed to travel during Australian school holidays. So we went ahead and booked but did not realise until a few weeks before our trip that we would be in Thailand during Songkran.
We had seen many videos on social media on the “world’s biggest water fight” but never imagined we would make it there one day!
For anyone who may not be familiar, Songkran is the Thai New Year. According to Wikipedia, In Buddhist communities in Thailand, this is a time to clean houses, show respect to elders by washing their feet, serving food and providing clothing to them. Donations are also made to monastery and needy. At our accommodation, we were able to observe a ceremony where staff from the resort provided food and gifts to Buddhist monks.
This all sounds pretty tame, so why on earth does most of Thailand engage in an almighty water fight? Traditionally, Thai people attend local temples and symbolically cleanse statues with water. This represents the cleansing, purification and washing away of sins and bad luck. A tradition has evolved whereby people wear bright floral or Hawaiian type shirts. As always, events start with wonderful symbolism and ceremony but they are often taken too far by tourists and visitors, as we saw during our time in Patong.
Before we arrived, I had this idealistic notion of how it would all play out – I would take my camera out and get a series of candid shots of locals and tourists engaging in water fights together. But when we saw the scale of water, buckets, cups, water pistols, massive slabs of ice, etc being gathered, we then began to understand just how huge (and wet) this was going to be. So I ditched the camera. We secured our phones and hotel keys in zip lock waterproof pouches, put on our quickest drying articles of clothing and decided to venture outside.
I am not joking or overstating this so please take note. If you do not want to get wet during Songkran, you have two options. You can stay inside the entire day. Or you can simply not visit Thailand during Songkran. These are your two options. I would dare you to live a little and embrace the madness – just keep all of your valuables and non waterproof items back at the hotel.
I thought that I may be able to give a pleading look to locals and they may have taken it a bit easy on me but I rather quickly discovered there is not a snowballs chance in hell of that happening! I discovered it was quite difficult to simultaneously keep my mouth closed (to avoid water going in my mouth) and squeal due to the frigid water hitting all parts of my body! The ice cold water is due to the massive chunks of ice bobbing around in the gigantic water buckets that line pretty much every street around Patong Beach. Staff from local businesses have perfected the art of smiling as you walk past them, then knowing the exact moment to dump a small bucket of icy water down your back, then appearing to be both pleased and apologetic, all while innocently giggling. But then, before you can complain about the icy surprise, you are promptly shot in the face by a Luke warm stream of water from a tourist’s water pistol.
Pete ventured out with his trusty GoPro to capture some awesome video of our stroll down Bangla Road, Patong Beach. This really does give you an excellent idea of how much fun the water festival can be.
Songkran is a wonderful event to experience and share with the Thai people. Please know that it is not appropriate to wet monks and the elderly, so if in doubt, don’t. Do your own research into the significance of the event and familiarise yourself with any ‘rules’. Ask staff at your accommodation specific questions, if you need.
There are also awesome markets throughout Patong Beach where you can buy amazing food and artisan products during Songkran celebration. Patong Beach had an awesome beachfront market set up for Songkran (this was up the top end of Thaweewong Road, about a block from Graceland’s).
Our tips for enjoying Songkran:
- Protect your eyes: Make sure you have sunglasses and/or diving mask/goggles, because so many of the water pistols being used are no joke. Plus, there are so many people shooting water in all kinds of directions, you are always at risk of a stray squirt.
- Walk this way: thongs are not really your friend in this environment as when they get wet, they get super slippery. We witnessed many blow outs (so maybe even take with you some plastic bread clips for emergency repairs. Crocs (in sports mode) did the trick well, so too did my Thailand Yeezy slides.
- Think of it as swimming: everything gets drenched. Wear swimmers with a shirt/dress over the top. Save your ‘nice’ clothes for another day.
- Go with the flow: enjoy the process, enjoy the event, enjoy the cooling water in the roasting Thai heat. It is one day out of the year, you might as well just go with it!
Let’s go!
Krissi x
