Thailand Celebrates Songkran Festival

The Songkran festival is celebrated all over Thailand from 13 to 15 April annually to mark the traditional New Year's Day. The water festival was organized many centuries ago and believed to be adapted from an Indian festival. Although the main famous Songkran celebrations are held in northern city of Chiang Mai, the festival is observed at all corners of Thailand and becomes the party for foreigners.

In Thai language, the word “Songkran” means “passing through” or “astrological passage”. As the belief of Thai people, this festival marks the entry of the sun enters the sign of Aries or the Ram.

To celebrate Songkran Festival or the traditional Thai New Year, families and friends gather to visit temples and sprinkle water to each other as an act of wishing good luck for New Year and wash away the sins of the old year. Hence, the Songkran Festival turns out to be the biggest water fight in the world.

People in Thailand celebrate Songkran festival or water festival in Bangkok with water and powder.

Foreign tourists are also interested in the Songkran festival in Bangkok

It is believed that spraying water and putting powder on the water festival can wash away the sins from the old year.

A Thai man wears strange glasses and sprays water on Khao San Road.

A statue of Buddha is also poured water to mark Thai New Year in Narathiwat Province.

Thai girls wet each other with water pistols.

In the Songkran festival, rice, boxes, buckets and guns are all used to store water.

A foreign tourist looks happy when watering a Thai boy on Khao San Road, Bangkok.

Thai elephants splash water on local people and residents in Thailand Province of Ayutthay.

The water festival is celebrated in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.