Three Days of Getting Completely Soaked
The first water hit me from behind — a full bucket, no warning, dumped by a kid who couldn’t have been older than eight. He was standing in the bed of a pickup truck that had been converted into a mobile water cannon, grinning like he’d just won a war. It was 9:30 in the morning on April 13th and I was already drenched to the bone.
That’s Songkran. Thailand’s New Year festival runs April 13 to 15, 2026, and the entire country — every street, every alley, every convenience store parking lot — becomes a water fight. The official name is สงกรานต์, which comes from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘to move into,’ referring to the sun’s transit into Aries. But nobody’s thinking about astronomy when they’re dodging Super Soakers.
The roots are gentler than the modern version suggests. Centuries ago, Songkran was about pouring small amounts of scented water over Buddha images at temples and over the hands of your parents and grandparents — a gesture of purification and respect. The ritual is called Rod Nam Dam Hua, and it still happens every morning of Songkran in homes and temples across the country, often before the water guns come out.
How it escalated from that to citywide water warfare is a question nobody seems to have a clear answer to. But here we are.
The Spiritual Side That Still Matters
Most coverage of Songkran leads with the water fights, so here’s the part that doesn’t make as many Instagram reels: the temple ceremonies are genuinely moving, even if you’re not Buddhist.
Song Nam Phra — bathing Buddha images with scented water — takes place at major temples from early morning. At Wat Pho in Bangkok, the line for this starts forming before dawn. The water is often infused with jasmine or rose petals, and the atmosphere is quiet, focused, completely different from what’s happening three blocks away on Khao San Road.
After the temple visit, families gather for Rod Nam Dam Hua. Younger family members pour jasmine water gently over the hands of their parents and grandparents, who sit in a row. The elders then offer blessings and tie white cotton string — sai sin — around the wrists of their children and grandchildren. It’s one of those things that sounds ceremonial on paper but in practice is just a family being tender with each other.
There’s also sand pagoda building at temples, which has a logic I find oddly satisfying: throughout the year, you carry tiny grains of temple sand away on your shoes. During Songkran, you bring sand back and shape it into small pagodas decorated with paper flags. It’s meant to be an act of returning what you’ve borrowed.
Where the Water Hits Hardest
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai is the one everybody talks about, and for good reason. The Old City moat — the square canal surrounding the historic center — provides a functionally unlimited water supply, which means the battles here are relentless. People line both sides of the moat with buckets, hoses, and increasingly elaborate pump setups. Pickup trucks loaded with 200-liter barrels cruise the ring road on a loop, soaking everyone in range.
Tha Phae Gate is ground zero. From roughly noon until midnight, the area around the gate becomes a solid wall of water and people. If you want a slightly less intense experience, the streets inside the Old City are calmer — vendors still splash you, but it’s more playful than aggressive.
The Phra Buddha Sihing procession is unique to Chiang Mai — a sacred Buddha image is paraded through the streets on a decorated float while devotees pour water over it. It’s genuinely beautiful, even in the middle of the chaos.
Chiang Mai’s Songkran runs about a day longer than the official dates — locals typically start on the 12th and don’t fully stop until the 16th. Plan accordingly.
Bangkok
Bangkok fragments the celebration across multiple neighborhoods, each with its own character.
Khao San Road (10:00–23:00) is the backpacker version — condensed, loud, international. The road closes to traffic and becomes an extended water fight with music, street food stalls, and vendors selling waterproof phone pouches for 50–100 baht. It’s fun in an overwhelming, can’t-hear-yourself-think kind of way.
Silom Road (10:00–midnight) is arguably the bigger party. The entire street shuts down and becomes a water fight corridor for blocks. This is where a lot of Bangkok’s Thai and expat crowd goes, and the energy is different from Khao San — more organized chaos, with stages set up for DJs and live music.
For the traditional side, Sanam Luang near the Grand Palace hosts merit-making ceremonies. In recent years, the government has organized a ‘Songkran Plaza’ cultural festival on Ratchadamnoen Road during April 11–15, with parades and performances from all five regions of Thailand. Whether this specific format continues in 2026 hasn’t been confirmed yet — check closer to the date.
Phuket and Pattaya
Pattaya extends Songkran into a week-long affair — the city’s ‘Wan Lai’ celebration typically runs from April 11 through the 19th or 20th, centered on Beach Road and the Lan Bodhi Park area in Na Kluea. Phuket’s celebrations focus on Patong Beach and the streets of Phuket Old Town, with the Soi Bangla area getting particularly intense.
The island version of Songkran has a different texture — more relaxed, more beach-adjacent, and with smaller crowds than Chiang Mai or Bangkok. Whether that’s better depends on what you’re after.
Ayutthaya
The ancient capital runs a week-long cultural Songkran with performances and parades set against UNESCO World Heritage temples. If the water-fight-on-every-corner thing sounds exhausting, Ayutthaya is the alternative — still festive, but the emphasis is on tradition rather than getting strangers wet.
What Nobody Warns You About
Songkran is genuinely fun, but a few things catch people off guard.
You cannot opt out. If you step outside during daylight hours on April 13–15 in any Thai city, you will be hit with water. This is not a suggestion or a possibility — it is a certainty. Tuk-tuks, motorcycles, pedestrians waiting at bus stops, people walking out of 7-Eleven — everyone is a target. The only exceptions are monks, very elderly people, and babies, and even that’s more of a guideline.
Road safety is a real concern. The Thai government’s own statistics consistently show a spike in road accidents during the Songkran holiday period. Wet roads, festive drinking, and the general chaos contribute. Don’t ride motorcycles during peak hours. Don’t throw water at moving vehicles on main roads — this one is both dangerous and increasingly frowned upon.
Sunscreen matters more than you think. April in Thailand is the hottest month of the year. Being constantly wet creates a false sense that you’re protected from the sun. You are not. Reapply waterproof sunscreen every couple of hours, or you’ll spend the rest of your trip dealing with a serious burn.
Hotels book out fast. Chiang Mai accommodations can be fully booked four to six weeks before Songkran. Bangkok has more capacity but the popular areas — around Khao San, near Silom — also fill up. Booking through Agoda at least a month ahead is the practical move, especially for Chiang Mai where the good spots near the moat go earliest.
Waterproof your stuff. Buy a waterproof phone pouch (50–100 baht from any street vendor). Put your passport and cash in ziplock bags inside a dry bag. Assume everything you carry will get soaked.
The Food You Can Only Get Now
Songkran season is one of the few times you can easily find khao chae (ข้าวแช่) — chilled jasmine-scented rice served with a spread of elaborate side dishes. It’s royal Thai cuisine with Mon origins, introduced to the Thai court sometime around the reign of King Rama IV. The rice is soaked in flower-infused water and served cold, alongside things like shrimp paste balls, stuffed shallots, and sweetened dried fish.
The etiquette, if you’re curious: eat the side dishes separately, don’t mix them into the rice bowl, and use different spoons. The point is to taste the delicate floral water between bites, so dumping everything together defeats the purpose. Finding it: upscale Thai restaurants in Bangkok and Chiang Mai put it on special menus during April. It’s not cheap — the preparation is genuinely labor-intensive.
Street food during Songkran is its own category. Vendors set up along the water fight routes selling grilled meats, som tam, mango sticky rice, and whatever else can be eaten standing up while periodically getting splashed. The quality is uneven — some of it is excellent, some of it has been sitting in the sun. Standard street food judgment applies.
Getting There and Getting Around
Domestic flights between Bangkok and Chiang Mai get expensive and sell out for the Songkran period — book at least a few weeks ahead. If you’re flexible on dates, flying in on the 12th and out on the 16th avoids the worst of the price surge.
Within Bangkok, BTS and MRT are your best options during the festival — surface-level traffic becomes unpredictable at best. Grab and taxis still run, but expect delays and possibly reluctant drivers in the water fight zones.
If you’re planning to hit multiple locations — say, Songkran in Bangkok for a day then Chiang Mai for the main event — booking through Trip.com for flights and accommodation bundles can simplify the logistics.
For organized Songkran experiences — temple tours, cooking classes, guided cultural activities — KLOOK has a decent selection. I’d particularly recommend booking temple tours for the morning of April 13th, before the water fights start in earnest. Getting a guide who can explain the Rod Nam Dam Hua ceremony and the significance of the sand pagodas adds a layer you won’t get by just wandering in.
After the Last Bucket
The city dries out surprisingly fast. By April 16th, you’d barely know it happened — the streets are cleaned, the pickup trucks go back to being pickup trucks, the water guns disappear from vendor stalls. My shirt from the last day was still damp when I packed it. The sunburn lasted longer than the festival did.
