Songkran festival or Thai New Year in Chiang Mai Thailand

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Songkran or as it is now known as the Thai New Year started in Lanna around 700 hundred years ago. Then the Lanna Kingdom comprised of North and Northeast Thailand, parts of Laos, Burma and southern Yunnan Province China. Songkran today is still celebrated in these areas except Burma where it has been banned by the military government there. Songkran was not celebrated in the rest of Thailand until around the 1950?s. In Bangkok then most of the workers, as today, came from the north or northeast part of Thailand. When Songkran came around, April 13 ? 15, most of the workers just left work and went to their villages for the New Year. For this reason the government and most businesses had to shut down for Songkran. For this reason this is now an official holiday in Thailand. The meaning of water during Songkran is very important. Pouring water on each other and Buddha statues is to wash away the past and a cleansing for the future year. This started as just pouring water on the hands or on the shoulder of others with a small cup of water. This has now grown into the largest water fight on the planet. Here is a short streaming video of the festival over a two day period. The first day, April 13, is the Songkran parade, which takes place on Muangchareon and Thapae roads at 2 PM and lasts around 3 hours. We then hit the streets to join the water fight mostly concentrated along the moat in the city center.

Channel: Travel & Events
Uploaded: September 13, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Author: allthai

Length: 0:07:55
Rating: 4.37
Views: 35,358

Tags: Chiangmai Thailand Songkran Thai New Year parade festival waterfight

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Video Comments:
biswajeetpangyok (Saturday 16th of August 2008 07:28:10 AM)
In the north-eastern part of India...Songkran is celebrated as Sangken well yeh usually on the 13th or 14th of April...
cosvan (Wednesday 16th of April 2008 10:45:12 PM)
what time? date?
allthai (Sunday 11th of May 2008 08:15:48 PM)
April 13-15 every year
arg888 (Monday 3rd of March 2008 06:57:55 PM)
Crazy! I can't wait for my trip this year!
travelbug1983 (Tuesday 19th of February 2008 12:12:04 PM)
Cool video!! i am going backpacking around south east asia and will be in Chang Mai for the Thai new year :) it looks so much fun
secretmyst (Sunday 6th of January 2008 12:47:20 PM)
T___T I miss home D:. I remember I used to go out with my friends and get really wet and at the end of the day we all get colds lol. Sigh...I wish Las Vegas had something from "home".
maddog4evr (Saturday 6th of October 2007 02:08:09 PM)
My thai wife got more pleasure watching me getting soaked by the thai community and me enjoying their customs. some time the water was ice cold but always fun
naruto10119 (Tuesday 19th of February 2008 03:57:38 PM)
its fun,but you don't always know where the water came from.
allthai (Tuesday 19th of February 2008 04:18:02 PM)
The city cleans the moat and filters the water in the moat every year for Songkran. Most use garden hoses from their house or establishment to fill their buckets. A few years ago the water in the moat was not very clean.
ChibiLok (Sunday 23rd of September 2007 08:22:24 PM)
i like this video when i see it i miss home. hahaha