Wet, Wet, Wet

Jake had arrived back at the TLC from his ‘border bounce’ just after we had gone to bed last night.
He had needed to cross the border and re enter Thailand because he was staying longer than the maximum 30 days allowable under a tourist visa. The nearest country is Myanmar but there are no land border crossings open between them and Thailand. This meant that a crossing into communist ruled Laos - the only landlocked country in south east Asia - was what was required.
A 5 hour drive to ‘Friendship Bridge No. 4’, a shuttle bus across no man’s land of the Mekong River for a stamp on the passport and then a return is officially a ‘border bounce’. However Jake chose to stay a night in Laos in a National Park treehouse in the jungle which he said was an amazing experience. About 30 or so zip lines were needed to be traversed as this is the only way into the house.

Today commenced in the usual way with breakfast and then the Memorial Meeting. Both before and after breakfast work was underway to complete the tables and bench seats to take to the Long Neck village tomorrow.

For Loss and I, the rest of the day was rather damp, despite the weather being hot and dry.

The plan was for everyone to head into Chiang Mai city (about half an hour’s drive / ride away) to get to the epicentre of the Songkran festivities. It is absolutely huge here in Thailand and the students really wanted to be part of this on their free afternoon. There were just not enough seats in the van to accommodate everyone, so Loss and I were designated to scooter in while the rest vanned in.
We met at the Tha Phae gate which was one of the main gates through the ancient city walls into the Old City. Those in the van got stuck in a traffic jam due to the festivities and had to disgorge their occupants quite a distance away.
On the scooter we were able to weave in and out of barely moving vehicles (mainly utes full of people and water appliances in the back) and we scored a parking spot just meters from our destination and then waited for the van occupants to arrive.
There was an incredible carnival atmosphere with only one theme - water. The whole area was heaving with people and every few seconds you would be wet by someone passing by.
Abi and the McGeorge boys decided that their little pump-action water pistols were not powerful enough and stopped to buy a much higher powered version with full backpack water storage. This gave them much more serious firepower and from time to time we were all on the wrong end of some well directed ‘friendly fire’.

After an hour or so of this it was time to start heading off. Loss and I bid them farewell, rode back to the ‘One Nimmon’ precinct for some food and drink and eventually got back to the TLC just on sunset and only slightly after the others.

It was a moisture laden day and the locals never seem to tire of the activity.

Loss and I got drenched by all the hoses, buckets and water pistols on the ride there.
We got drenched again repeatedly during our walk around the city centre area.
And then we got drenched again by the roadside snipers on our ride back to the TLC.

Yes indeed, it was wet, wet, wet.En savoir plus