Previous posts:

• Songkran 2021 – Isaan Village Style
• Happy New Year 2565

April 13-15 marks the new year for Thai people. Never having been colonized, they use their own calendar—over 500 years older than our Jesus-based calendar. Theirs is Buddha based. They do, however, conform to Western standards of January 1 as the official start of every new year. It's also observed in Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, parts of northeast India, parts of Vietnam, and Xishuangbanna, China (which borders Laos and Myanmar). Here's a bit of a brief on it.

You just have to contend with the 543-year difference because every document, including bills, uses that calendar.

Songkran is a water festival. There are the formal ways of doing that (see the video down below from our own homegrown ceremony last year) and then the informal ways...where like yesterday evening when I headed out to do the rounds, I was sprayed and doused with water all along the 5 kilometers.

Short intro this time, but the rest is free, you just have to grab the free level of membership.