Songkran "run" in Chiang Mai

Songkran is kind of a big deal in Thailand. It is a nationwide water fight of sorts that celebrates That new year and also kind of marks the "end" of the hot season even though it seems extremely hot anyway... Maybe that is just my European blood talking though.

During this week-long celebration, getting out to our usual jungle locations is seriously complicated by traffic and how it barely moves, so years ago we just decided to embrace it and do a pub crawl run of sorts in the downtown area.

There aren't very many opportunity to actually run, it is more like a walk while getting sprayed with water constantly. It's fun, but there isn't really any exercise element to it that we would normally experience if it was a real HHH event.

Complaining about this is a waste of breath so we just embrace it and if you can't beat em, join em is our attitude for this day.

You can see one of our own mixed in with the revelry, he is the one with all the patches on his vest.

One neat thing about the Songkran run is that for once, our bright colored outfits don't stand out at all since the "outfit" for Songkran participants seems to be brightly colored what I would call "Hawaiian shirts".

The downtown area is pretty chaotic during this time so we don't have any unknown turns like we normally would in a normal jungle run. The trail organizer is just someone that has pre-arranged with a bunch of pubs to have beers prepared for us, which isn't a tall order at all seeing as how this is a big day for all pubs in the downtown area.

Something kind of funny happened though when we turned up at one of the pubs for our drinks that had already been paid for and they weren't even open. The guy got his money back as well as a video call from the owner and we all got to see him soaking wet in the back of a pickup truck doing the rounds participating in the water war. It was an honest mistake and we just went to another place nearby and the guide paid with wet money.

I kind of enjoy this annual event but it isn't really exercise at all. We got about 6000 soaking wet steps in but there was no reason to try to go fast like we would do in the jungle, doing so would likely get you hit by a slow moving car or bumping into some ladyboys in bikinis. These are both humorous but potentially deadly situations.

Next week we will return to our usual jungle routes so come along and join us on Monday (men only), Thursday (all welcome), or Saturday (all welcome). As usual the pickup point is the Tha Pae McDonalds out front, at 3:30 to 4:00 PM.

On ON!