Becoming a Monk during Songkran

After our trek up Khao Sam Yot in the morning, on Monday afternoon a party was held for a neighbour that was about to become a monk. It is common for young guys to enter the monkhood, at least for a couple of weeks. Before he enters everyone in the village gives him some sort of farewell party. He sat on the back of a pick-up with a few elder people and they slowly drove from his home around the village. There were probably close to 100 people following on foot as they left his home and passed Wan's home (about 50m away). At the tail of the procession was another pick-up truck loaded with a 2 metre wall of speakers blaring popular music. Everyone was dancing, drinking and soaked with water. As they passed each house the inhabitants would throw buckets of water on the procession and then join in. I think a combination of extra long public holidays (many young people returned home to their village), Songkran (throwing water on everyone) and the guy becoming a monk made this one big, fun party. Sort of like a mini festival. However, like the Big Day Out or the hill at the cricket, take a a group of young men drinking in a summer festival atmosphere and eventually there will be a fight. The crowd of young children through to grandparents quickly dispersed to the nearby houses as the pushing and shoving started. There were some punches thrown but nothing too wild. For most people that ended the party - we walked about 75m home - although I guess the monk to-be continued on to the wat. It turned out there were similar street parties in the following days, but in these cases it was a group of people making an offering to the local Wat. They were much smaller (50-100 people), but still good fun. I joined one and managed to make it to the Wat this time (despite a fight breaking out on the way). Unfortunately there are no pictures as I didn't want my camera to get soaked.

Created on Tue, 13 Apr 2010, 1:25pm

Last changed on Wed, 21 Apr 2010, 9:27pm