BANGKOK SONGKRAN

TRADITION

The Thai New Year (Songkran) is celebrated every year from April 13 to April 15. It coincides with the New Year of many calendars of South and Southeast Asia.

The most obvious celebration of Songkran is the throwing of water. People roam the streets with containers of water or water guns, or post themselves at the side of roads with a garden hose and drench each other and passersby. This, however, was not always the main activity of this festival. Songkran was traditionally a time to visit and pay respects to elders, including family members, friends and neighbors.

Besides the throwing of water, people celebrating Songkran may also go to a wat (Buddhist monastery) to pray and give alms to monks. They may also cleanse Buddha images from household shrines as well as Buddha images at monasteries by gently pouring water mixed with a Thai fragrance over them. It is believed that doing this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. In many cities, such as Chiang Mai, the Buddha images from all of the city’s important monasteries are paraded through the streets so that people can toss water at them, ritually ‘bathing’ the images, as they pass by on ornately decorated floats. In northern Thailand, people may carry handfuls of sand to their neighborhood monastery in order to recompense the dirt that they have carried away on their feet during the rest of the year. The sand is then sculpted into stupa-shaped piles and decorated with colorful flags.

The water is meant as a symbol of washing all of the bad away and is sometimes filled with fragrant herbs.

Songkran is also celebrated in many places with a pageant in which young women demonstrate their beauty and unique talents, as judged by the audience. The level of financial support usually determines the winner, since, to show your support you must purchase necklaces which you place on your chosen girl.

SHOOTING

Once again, it is my serious wish to have some shots of water splashing during this auspicious season. Bangkok nowadays is under STATE OF EMERGENCY. All of my friends asked me to stick my ass in my room. But then, I couldn’t. Today, I went AIT (Asian Institute of Technology) at Prathum Thani. One of my friends told me that there is a water splashing event there. My friends, Myo Kyaw Htun and Myo Min Win, were my accompanies. There was a host at AIT called Kyi Cin Shwe. We arrived there around noon. People already started playing water. I had lots of shots and so does Myo Kyaw Htun. I saw some nice shots on his camera so sharing some of his shots here also.

Special Credits: My friends, Myo Kyaw Htun, Myo Min Win and Little Kyi Cin Shwe.

During Songkran, everyone young and old fervantly flash water with a great happiness…

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Bwan… That’s how people throw water…

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Giant fire fighter pipes are efficiently utilized at AIT…

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I have never known there are heaps of Burmese students at AIT…

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This little guy was so happy splashing water around… I really miss my childhood days…

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They way people splash water in Songkran is exactly the same as Burmese’s Thingyan… The only difference is that they used powder…

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A group of Burmese friends at AIT Songkran Event

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Water wash away their SIN… that’s the renown belief of Songkran…

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He seems too energetic playing with this giant pipe…

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MYO KYAW HTUN likes this picture so much… Taken with his NIKON D-80 and NIKKOR 18-135mm…

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Participants at AIT Songkran, Bangkok, Thailand…

pon_gyi

WOW… that’s sooo cool… then u had a chance to play with water even u r not in ygn… geez… really envy ya… btw, what else they do for celebrating new yr??? do they treat some snacks like we do??? hee hee… u know i’m curious about my most favourite thing… ;P
Treasure

Ma lwan lauk par bu…Bal lo ma ma lawn tint tot bu coz it is not inya street…..Inya street ko lwan tal… :’( but it is nice ….
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Pon Gyi >> Yes, they treated some snacks there. Some Burmese snacks. You never fail to impress people with your favorite thing…

@ Threasure >> Yeap, I know how much you gals value INYA road… I will try my best to capture INYA road by next year ok?
http://cmsmdy.blogspot.com CMS

ေဟးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးးး… ေပ်ာ္စရာႀကီးကြာ ေရေတြပက္ခ်င္တုိင္း ပက္လို႔ရတယ္။ တစ္ခုေတာ့ သတိေပးခ်င္တယ္ သြားတာလာတာ ၾကၫ္႔ၾကပ္သြားပါ ကိုရဲေရ… အေျခအေန သိတဲ့အတုိင္းပဲ။

စကားမစပ္… ၾကည္စင္ေရႊရဲ႕ပံု မပါပါလား… လူကေသးေသးဆိုေတာ့ ဘယ္နားေပ်ာက္ေနပါလိမ့္ :P
cho

i was expecting burmese thingyan shot from you but it is still ok to see this
i like photos number 6 the most.. great shot :)
Kyi Cin Shwe

Thanks Ko Ye!..
ကိုခ်မ္းက လည္း ညီမေလးက ပါပါရာဇီ လက္က လြတ္ေအာင္ေရွာင္ႏုိင္တယ္ေလ… :D
hsu hlaing

why i never found u in these photos, YLO?
u should upload yrs too :P
William Chit-Maung

Hey man, Great job with the photos, All of them have very good water motion. And even greater job with keeping your camera dry :-)

Although I like the added vignetting in “A group of Burmese friends at AIT Songkran Event,” I would crop the bottom part of the picture. It’s in my opinion that half-cut faces are a bit strange to look at :-)

and really great job with the last group picture. you only got 4 half faces out of 30-40, which is really hard to capture in a group this big & constantly moving.
Win Thiri Kyaw

Your photos are so great, active…
I feel cold and happy seeing those, feel like getting thrown by water. I miss thingyan so much…
http://myphotos-moe.blogspot.com/ Moe Lwin

You managed to keep your camera dry, eh! Well done.
Pics are full of fun.

Stay safe!
http://melodymaung.com MelodyMaung

ေပ်ာ္စရာႀကီး nar loe buu loe ma pyaw par buu hehee
:) Thanks for sharing pic
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ CMS >> Yes, AIT is a safe bro. I avoid hot spots. I guess Kyi Cin Shwe intentionally avoided me…

@ Cho >> Sorry for my bad, sis… Next year ok?

@ Hsu Hlaing >> Lolz… I won’t upload but will give you if you want. Naked one huh?
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ William Chit-Maung >> Thanks for letting me know ur opinions, bro… Appreciated! Re: #6, I just wanted to show more people in the shot. Your idea might give a better taste too…

@ Win Thiri Kyaw >> Oh, you keep your promise. Thanks a lot for your visit and comment, my sis…

@ Moe Lwin >> Thanks for your comment, bro…

@ Melody Maung >> Ma Mi. If you keep your promise, you would be here in the photos…
http://lundgrenstudios.com Ted C.

Wonderful Photo’s YLO!
You caught some great photo’s. It looks like people have a lot of fun at Songkran. And like your friend says you kept your camera dry lol. Thanks for sending the link!
Su Hnin

bro..u look like this little guy.. :D anyway nice photos…
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Ted C >> Thanks bro. Yes, people are with total fun. Of course, my D90 is only a week old. Need to keep away from water…

@ Su Hnin >> No lah… He has hair but I dont…
Phoebe

when i saw all photo,i feel really really happy and really upset for my living life in japan…hooooooooooooooooo..
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Phoebe >> I can imagine how much you would miss THINGYAN…
KoThike

Hey friend,
You guys look really fun. Do you know Cherry Myo Lwin?
I’m her friend. Can you let her know about me?
My name is Ko Thike
Thanks
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ KoThike >> Well, actually I know none of them. And I don’t know who is Cherry Myo Lwin. My apology. I went there with my friend. Thanks for your visit and comment, bro…
AIT Alumni

Ma Cherry Myo Lwin is with black shirt, the one standing behind in pic no. 8.. You can see her pic in group photo also.. She’s currently studying in Energy Department from School of Environment and Development.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ AIT Alumni >> Bro. I absolute don’t know her. Just happened to saw there and she becomes part of my photo. That’s all. Happy New Year, bro…
http://BurmeseMTV.com/ Linn

nice, sounds like fun.
http://www.hobbyzawminooblogspot.com Zaw Min Oo

I have been too busy with my work even to sit in front of my computer for a few weeks. So it goes without saying I failed to visit your web page. Anyway, I get less busy for the time being to drop a few comments on your blog. I regreted I was unable to take part in Thingyan here getting very busy. All your photos make me feel home-sick. They seem alive telling how Myanmar people celebrate their new year.
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Linn >> It is real fun, bro…

@ Zaw Min Oo >> Thanks for your comment and visit, bro…
suwei

seems like all of u have fun naw :D
cool!
hapi new year bro..
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Suwei >> Yes, we had fun a lot there. Happy New Year to you too…
yinnwe

Although you had missed Myanmmar Thingyan, atleast u had chance to capture those shots in Thai Songkran. anyway i m glad that i can see those shots in April..
http://yelwinoo.com/ Ye Lwin Oo

@ Yinnwe >> Yes, I am partially satisfied with these shots…