Drenched by Super Soakers and blasted by buckets of water: Celebrating Songkran in Chiang Mai

Having a bucket of ice-cold water whipped over me by a child so tiny that I didn’t see her coming is really not how I thought my day was going to go. Water pistols, yes. Roadside hoses, sure. But truck upon truck driving past like Mardi Gras floats, loaded with vats of water that families and their dangerously small, bucket-wielding offspring throw as they pass by – well, that was a surprise.

I suppose I should’ve thanked the infant; the temperature was 40C. ’s new year celebration, Songkran, takes place in the, one of the hottest months of the year up in , where I live. But despite residing here for a few years, this was my first Songkran in the north and blimey, I had a lot to learn.