A wet Songkhran on Silom Road today

 

"Backpack tank for squirt gun"

“Wet n wild”

For the first time in ten years, I celebrated Songkhran, the Thai New Year, in Thailand.  Usually I duck the holiday by travelling abroad for the first two weeks in April.  This year I cancelled a trip to Japan and found myself spending this week in Bangkok.

"Getting ready to squirt"

Usually people in Bangkok celebrate on Silom or Khao San Road.  It’s one big water fight with all manner of water weapons, from the smallest squirt gun to a shoulder weapon that is similar in size to a RPG launcher.  Some celebrants resort to throwing ice cold water from buckets.  And then there’s the fire hydrants.  Quite a wet day.  Nowadays, partiers also smear a water-soluble powder on faces as you can see from some of these photos.

Silom was closed to traffic for the day and there must have been fifty thousand “water babies” engaging in hand to hand combat at five paces with water guns.  And the smeary powdery liquid.  Although it sounds like the makings of a disaster, it was great fun.

For today’s raucous time, I used my Nikon D300s and the AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 VR zoom lens.  I didn’t want to risk other more expensive lenses, knowing that the lens (and camera) would get a soaking.  As a ready holster, I used my waterproof Ortlieb shoulder bag, unzipped.  Although the camera came under some “attack” from the squirt guns, all in all, it survived with no problems.  After I reached home, I thoroughly dried the camera and lens.  Good as new.

At times, I thought I should have brought another lens or two (14-24 or 24-70 zoom lenses) but felt it was wiser to restrict potential disaster to one lens.  Afterwards I realized that I should have used my AF-D 28-200mm f3.5-5.6 for its wider angle instead of the 70-300.  Oh well, there’s always next year.

"Posing for the pic"

"Didn't get me"

"Time to get wet"