Songkran Hua Hin 2024

 Songkran started in Thailand yesterday and before I tell you what we did last night, let me begin by saying that Songkran is an ages old tradition that begins with ceremonies in homes, villages and temples throughout the country. It’s a Thai, traditional, new year celebration.

We went into Hua Hin last night, parked the car and wandered into the melee. In some of the quieter streets, families with small/young children set themselves up with water guns and barrels of water or hose pipes. Everyone who walks past is a victim and is invited to fight back if they have their own water guns. If you run out of water, you are free to take water wherever you find it.

You will see some people, just a few, who walk past who are still dry. Well, like us at the start, we just arrived in town and had met no one so far. Dryness is a foreign concept very early on, however.

As you get further into the main songkran area, the number and intensity of stations increases. Very quickly, the roads and streets lose their traffic. Otherwise, anyone on a motorbike or in the back of a pickup is just fair game and they are in for a soaking. Many people set off in a pickup with one or more barrels of water and they set out to do battle. Some of the most uproarious sights comprise pickup v pickup or pickup v pedestrians. You can laugh so much at some of the battles that you stop breathing!

Who gets involved in this mayhem? Everyone who can get there. Young kids who love the idea of soaking an older person all the way to men and women, armed with serious water power who are there to squirt and be squirted.

There are people armed with small, medium and large sized water guns. There are people armed with hose pipes. There are people who are armed with smallish bowls with which they fling their water. So water can come at you from any angle and even from significant distances.

No one. Let me repeat, no one, ever gets angry here. You go there and you are deemed to have signed a virtual consent form. It’s all really good, clean fun.

Our kids loved it, we loved it, everyone loved it. We walked a long way to go around the whole water soaking area! We took towels and a change of clothes for when we got back to the car.

Is there anything not to like? Not really, except for me, there is one thing. I am a cold water coward and some people have access to really, really cold water. I had one full body ice cold water dousing early on and it took my breath away! But, this is Thailand and the weather is warm so most of the water is warm.

There is also the tradition of face painting so, as well as with the water fights, many people are there just to paint your face. Again, nice and friendly.

So, I was attacked by very young children with their small water guns, by women with their water bowls, with a seconds long attack by a hose pipe and by that iced water attack from behind!

Finally, if you’re ever in Thailand at Songkran, get invoked, you’ll love it! By the way, there were six of us in our party and five water guns: guess who had no gun😳

DW

13 April 2024

Age Creaks up on us!

You might look around at people older than you and wonder what it's like to walk in their shoes. The older the person you are looking at, the more critical the question becomes.

Without wishing to tempt fate in any way, I am reasonably healthy for my age but not as fit as I should be. Still, I am independent in body and mind but age does one pernicious thing to us: it creaks up on us!

If you had seen me a month ago, you would have seen me sitting and shuffling in my chair, wincing in pain grabbing my left elbow and massaging it. Applying heat treatment creams and gels to my upper left arm, shoulder and upper left chest. I even went to the doctor and had lidocaine injections to try to numb my pain. It took me a few nights to learn how to lie in bed to keep the pain away.

This is an age related problem: don't move until your body is good and ready. Don't get into positions that your body can no longer tolerate. You will suffer if you don't heed my words.

What happened was that I spent three days glued to my office chair. Even though I learned decades ago how to take care of my back following a volleyball injury, I do still slouch from time to time. And during these three days I slouched too much. Then I paid for it over and over again.

• Sitting became difficult
• Driving became difficult
• Ordinary every day tasks became difficult

It took about two weeks before I felt any improvement, in spite of the injections, an upper body massage, the pain killers and the muscle relaxants. As the pain and discomfort eases a little, we get confident. So it comes back and bites us smack bank on our arse again.

Into the third week, though, I felt more and more relief and I even managed to determine the arm muscle stress that was causing my left elbow so much pain: I massaged that muscle and it worked wonders.

Overall, it took about a month to get back to normal but even so, if I slouch a bit or relax a bit too much in the wrong way, I get a tweak by way of gentle advice: not to mess with this ageing frame!

DW

10th March 2024

Are you sure you know where we're going?

I decided I should get back to documenting my life here on my blog, as well as and/or instead of on other social media. So here we are!

Driving along, heading towards a kite competition taking place over yesterday and today, I asked Mrs W, as were had gone about 30 kilometres already, if she knew exactly where we were going: confidently, as usual, she replied, Yes, of course.

So, I drove on and fter another 10 km or so we arrived at a beach that was already a bit busy: it had a music stage all set up, there was a mini play area for children and there were many food stalls already serving food, drinks and ice cream.

We hired a table and some chairs and sat down on the beach, along with everyone else and I was intrigued by the lack of kites. Now, we had arrived about 4:45 pm so maybe we missed them for that day. But Mrs W chacked google maps for confirmation and suddenly exclaimed: Oh! it's another 102 Km away!

A few minutes later, Mrs W's sister arrived and, given the 102 km news, I asked her, how did you find us?

Never mind, the place got really busy, the music was pretty poor but everyone was enjoying themselves.

As for me, I started watching a football match on my phone when 3 year old Sammie saw my phone and asked, Where's Renaldo? I laughed out loud at that. The kids have been watching a few Renaldo tribute videos on YouTube of late and her question was taken from there!

DW

7th March 2024