The Thai Pirate - Thai Blog and Travel Stories

A Soaked and Safe Songhran

Despite all the drama occuring in parts of Bangkok, the rest of the country carries on as normal. It's funny cos so many people hear / see what's happening back home and worry about relatives in Thailand. The reality is, unless you venture into these very distinct (and hard to get to) central parts of Bangkok you probably wouldn't notice / experience any difference at all.

For instance, if you travel up to (the extremely flat and hot) Suphanburi, its as if you are a million miles away from any guns / soldiers / bombs.

Our Songhran began the same as last year; the first day of the festival and we had a few beers and some food round gran's, and the whole family gave her a scrub (although she didn't strip off this year, dammit).

Aiden had a swift bath in the cold Songhran water, lucky little bugger, I almost jumped in with him it was so sweltering.

For a few days the Thai's party heavily in the streets and arm themselves with various water launching equipment, anything from a rusty old bucket to the latest in high tech water soakers.. Some clever souls even attach huge hoses to whatever fits and pump it from buildings / houses / rivers to really generate some serious soaking power, although as they have to remain in one spot they generally get even more of a soaking.

Today we drove through Ayutthaya, the streets absolutely solid in what was just one huge waterfight, a series of traffic jams that were a pleasure to be stuck in. A carnival atmosphere, without a frown in sight (although I've never seen so many ambulances in one day in Thailand...)

(the mobile waterfight, heading towards Ayutthaya town centre).

After a while we took a few blind turns and stumbed across a nice little restaurant sitting beside the river. A great little find, and we spent some time away from the excitement and traffic, and watched the world float by for a bit.

Grow up Thailand....

We've heard all the politics, the conflicting arguements. Reds say there are double standards, yellows say the vote is bought etc.

I (try to) keep my mouth shut, being that I am a little faranger, preferring to keep my head down, knowing as little as I do of the real detail ..

But even to dumb falang like me the violence was inevitable.

Let's forget we are talking about Thailand for just a second.

Pretend you're an army / police chief, somewhere.

You have your duties, your responsibilities, your reputation. You are presented with a problem. You have 10,000 angry protestors / mob in the streets of the capital.

Lots are carrying knives. One in every 10 is packing a firearm.

That's a small army.

Small armies walking around capital cities can only go so long without someone getting hurt.

The crucial point - So many Thai's feel they have to carry a gun around; at home, in the car, in the park with the kids, or in the middle of an angry mob baying for political upheaval.

When remembering rioting that has occured in England during the 70's / 80's / 90's, sure, it was nasty stuff, but at least the old bill were pretty sure they were fighting an angry mob hand to hand. It must be a whole different ballgame if you're facing guys who are willing and able to blast you into the next life. It doesn't take a professor to realise it wouldn't be long before those little thai trigger fingers get a little too twitchy, by both teams...

20 dead is surely only the tip of the iceberg in these circumstances; if people don't stop acting like total morons / cowards, and start reasoning with each other.

My view? - If you go anywhere armed with a gun or a knife, and you get shot, that's your own damn fault. You deserve it, cos, your probably gonna get some other poor twat killed who isn't carrying one.

Looking over to how we do things back home, it's incredibly simple.... If I waved a gun around in the streets in England, I can quite cheerily expect to be blasted by the cops without so much as a blink of the eye.

Grow up Thailand. Put the guns down.

Bringing up a nipper in LOS

My apologies for the lack of posting recently, my time is somewhat limited now the kid is in control, although I still fully intend to post when I can.

Bringing up a kid in Thailand is a little different from how it might be in the UK. For one thing, it's warmer, most of the time quite a bit warmer; rather than be confined to the indoors due to poor weather (as he might be in England) in Thailand he often has to be kept indoors due to the heat..... Everytime I walk him from, say, the car to a shop, various blankets / shirts / hankees are thrown in my direction to protect his little features from the blazing sun.

The other thing that springs to mind is language.

Everybody accepts that Aiden will most likely speak two languages, but, I would be a liar if I said that there wasn't a little competition for which language he will learn first.

I, of course, want Aiden to speak English prominantly, being that I am his dad, and would like to say a few things to him on occasion, but this feeling is echoed by his Thai family. I think the poor little sod has his work cut out, even at this age. (incidently if anyone who has young kids in Thailand who can offer any tips on language development, would be greatly appreciated). I don't think it will be much of a problem, as he is surrounded by the Thai language everyday, and Sutiya and I only speak English (as my Thai is dodgy at best) I hope he can soak it all up without too many issues.

Another thing is work.

As Sutiya and I often work together, this has meant that Aiden has tagged along with us.

I have to confess, I wasn't sure how this would 'pan out', or whether it was practical, but it has worked well so far. Thailand's more relaxed attitude towards kids / family and work in general has meant we are freer to venture out together, and take advantage of Thailand's endless range of decent quality, affordable pitstops and hotels ..

Whether this can continue as he gets older is anyones guess.

Having a young family in Thailand is alot of fun, but as he begins to run around etc I will no doubt have nightmares about snakes / creepy crawlies etc, something I wouldn't worry about in the UK, but I'm sure if I was back at home in England I would replace this worry with something else...

Have a happy and safe Songhran and thanks for reading.