I was picturing as something like Śmigus-Dyngus Day.
Posted on 04/17/2026 9:05:39 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The annual festival of Songkran usually signifies a dazzling week-long celebration — but this year’s death toll paints a picture that’s anything but. While the Thai holiday is globally famous for being the “world’s largest water fight,” the reality on the ground is a horrific cycle of road accidents, drunk driving and reckless behavior.
In the first three days of Songkran this year, more than 191 deaths have been recorded with 951 accidents and 911 injuries. According to the Road Accident Victims Protection Company, an average of 38 road deaths per day occur throughout the calendar year, indicating a large increase over the Songkran festival.
Nicknamed the “seven dangerous days,” the death toll is also driven by “speeding and risky behaviors such as not wearing helmets.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Thailand?
Sounds like Spring Break, Fort Lauderdale.
We need sensible water control....
I was picturing as something like Śmigus-Dyngus Day.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Songkran
History and legend
The Thai word songkran comes from the Sanskrit word sankranti, which indicates the passage of the sun into a new sign of the Hindu astrological system. The transition of the sun into the sign of Mesha (“ram”) is observed as a New Year festival in many parts of South Asia and Southeast Asia. Cultural exchange spread the astrological system, along with the New Year holiday, from South Asia into Southeast Asia during the first millennium ce.
The exact route the holiday took from South Asia to Southeast Asia and the precise religious origins of the holiday are unclear. The holiday could have spread with Theravada Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia. The New Year is celebrated on the same date astrologically in Sri Lanka as Aluth Avurudda, among Hindus in India’s Tamil Nadu state as Puthandu, and in Kerala state as Vishu, giving credence to a southern and seafaring origin. The same date on the lunisolar calendar also marks the New Year in the northeastern Indian state of Assam as the festival Bihu, in West Bengal state, the neighboring country Bangladesh as Pohela Boishakh, making dissemination by an overland route possible as well. Hinduism spread to Southeast Asia, as did Buddhism, during the first millennium of the Common Era. In the second millennium Songkran began to take on exclusively Buddhist meanings and practices as Theravada Buddhism rose in prominence under the Khmer empire (9th–15th century ce) and Ayutthaya empire (14th–18th century) in Thailand.
Posted yesterday.
191 people killed during ‘world’s largest water fight’ in Thailand
04/16/2026 5:17:42 AM PDT · by Libloather · 11 replies
News.com.au via NY Post ^ | 4/16/26 | Amy Jackson,
Also bogus headline!
Yeah Thailand.
Alcohol and motor scooters don’t mix.....anybody with a lick of sense can tell you that.
Which is why I never understood the logic behind biker bars.....I mean that’s just asking for trouble.
and in nearby taiwan, no one was killed in the world largest firecracker fights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8pRVbCtT0
“Sounds like Spring Break, Fort Lauderdale”
Nah, you need more gun fire for that.
I have never done a bike night event. Because I don’t drink and then ride my motorcycle. I’m smarter than I look lol
“Which is why I never understood the logic behind biker bars.....I mean that’s just asking for trouble.”
Many decades ago when I enjoyed strafing the back roads of the Santa Monica mountains, there was a small shop called the Rock Store. Picnic tables and much beer drinking in the shade, well away from traffic and polices.
Lots of “life style” types would congregate. Memorable afternoon when a couple leave in a trail of flatulent noise, then proceed to crash at the first bend in the road.
One comes back shouting how a brother had crashed. Several charge off to help and also crash. Memorable
Yep, beer and bikers.
Songkran is fun. Actual “deaths” during the week are just from traffic accidents - and it is HALF what it normally is and not really related to the event itself.
But reporters are lazy. They don’t bother trying to learn the “Rest of the Story”. For example, how the economically depressed mass of college graduates who can’t find jobs in Thailand’s weak middle class economy, use Songkran to blow off steam. And that the government gladly lets them do so for the whole week - to delay a revolution.
Thailand is a beautiful place. The people are, generally, kind and friendly. But there is tremendous corruption and the military pretty much calls the shots behind the scenes. At least that’s the word on the street.
Yep, beer and bikers.
Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers
Or the purge.
Oh yeahhhhh ...thailand 1971 to 1974 ....oh yeah dah wahtuh fights...everybody gets bombed with water...in the way back, you wold sprinkle a few drops of water, wishing you good luck. Then along came the American GI, And things have escalated beyond FUBAR!
At least we had no fatalities in those years!
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