In the more modern parts of Thailand ,for example the small Thai village of Bangkok, on its ten million inhabitants, the tradition is shadowed by the watery mayhem that can be only described as Songkran-gone-wild with water being celebrated as water and not as some philosophical religious semi-mystical blessing element of generations on generation.

I have to say, it IS fun . I complain about it, I try to stock up on food and rarely leave the house that week, I scorn the people on the street waving water guns, but in the end it is fun being eight years old again, cringing as the cold water hits your spine sending you into a swift merciless shiver to the sounds of laughter, ducking as yet another hand full of  talcum paste is being  directed at you, avoiding it like an old kung fu master, jumping behind corners as a pickup truck full of H2O hooligans doing drive-by wettings of unsuspecting pedestrians  goes by.

Songkran is a celebration if I have ever seen one. Unlike other places where new year is a day, or more importantly a night, in Thailand, as in Thailand , they manage to stretch it into a week, sometime two, if you are extra Thai , even more, with very long office holidays, a lot of homemade meals as in any other traditional society, and more important a lot of beer and Thai whisky.

I don’t know how traditional it is, or maybe this is the new tradition we have been creating in this generation, but for a beginning of a new year, the combination of a very hot week, with very cold beer and a lot of waterguns and music on the streets? Not that bad. Hopefully the next generations will find some "hidden" symbolism in it.