A Major Party is Brewing!

Forget the reports of Red Shirts bringing Bangkok to a standstill and imminent revolution and insurrection. There is a big party brewing in Thailand as The Thai New Year, the festival of Songkran, approaches. This is a three day holiday, (binge!) which starts on Monday.

Now in my experience Thais don't like anything getting in the way of their sanook and on the party front it doesn't come much bigger than the new year. Stores like Tesco are selling all manner of water container and projector as New Year here is a so called festival of water. You wish your fellows a Happy New Year by pouring water over them and this in fact turns into a full pitched water fight and lasts for three days. I remember being in Chiang Mai about 8 years ago and having to change my clothes about 4 times every day!

So PM Abhisit Vejjasjiva's sudden decision to declare the Friday prior to Songkran a public holiday, and he did this on Wednesday last week, was very clever. In effect it means than many people will have a ten day holiday as many businesses will close all next week and not reopen until the following Monday. And this means sanook mahk!

Unfortunately there is a down side. It is not just about getting wet, blind drunk and having a ball. Hundreds of people will sadly lose their lives in the carnage that ensues on the roads, when alcohol excess and overladen motor cycles meet. It has become such a big problem that there has been a debate in the last few months about restricting alcohol sales. Nothing materialised from this in respect of this year's event but rest assured the head count of dead and injured during this year's Songkran will be a huge story. As I understand it there were in the region of 290 fatalities on the roads over the three days of last year's event.

The United Front for Democracy, ("the UDD"), aka The Redshirts or The Reds, the Thaksin front that is spearheading the much reported protests in Bangkok, took the mob to Pattaya where an ASEAN summit is scheduled this weekend. After a little bit of cockfackery they have dispersed and promised to resume with increased vigour after Songkran! You see not even the mighty Thaksin and The Reds can expect their followers to give up their New Year celebrations! With any luck the UDD folks will get so completely out of it they will forget about the protests and go back to work with sore heads after the new year festivities.

Songkran is the one time of the year when Bangkok is quiet in much the same way as London empties for Christmas. People flock home to their villages to celebrate New Year with their families and with the extra days' holiday this year's version promises to be a real bumper. Stages are being constructed in Ratchaburi so there will no doubt be a major bash here too and by virtue of being a very obvious foreigner in these parts I expect to get extremely wet! Watch this space.

The additional Friday holiday was in actual fact Good Friday and Luna and I had a quiet day and went to a beautiful Veneration of the Cross service. As at Christmas there was a beautifully choreographed Stations of the Cross which removed any linguistic issues arising from the service being conducted in Thai. Standing room only at the church and after the service we spoke with Bishop Panya and told him we were thinking of including Panya in Benedicts's full name....he very modestly told us Benedict was a good choice! We also learned that our friend Fr Siripong who recently said mass in our home and blessed our house has been elevated to the Bishop of Chantaburi and will take up that office in July. So we will be on very good terms with the Catholic heirarchy of Thailand!

In the midst of this Easter/Songkran cross over festival I am up at 0330h in the morning watching the concluding part of Day 2 of the Masters which is being piped in live form Augusta, GA in the US of A. Clearly the greatest golf tournament in the world and it is probably too early to call at this stage but I am delighted to note that one Sandy Lyle has finished at -2, will make it for the weekend and while unlikely to win has the prospect of picking up a decent pay cheque. The Tiger boy is about the same, -2, I think, which currently is about sevens strokes off the lead and if you know anything about golf you know the Tiger can win the tournament from such a position! I have just watched Padraig HArrington sink an eagle put to go to -3 so that brings him into contention for winning a third consecutive major. Wow!

Not such a bad life especially when I am playing golf myself at 0630 this morning.