Happy new year

The lead editorial in the April 15 Bangkok Post started out like this: "Despite efforts to make it a national occasion to observe family togetherness and respect for the elders, the Songkran festival has descended into just a long annual break marked by water attacks, heavy drinking, road accidents and untimely deaths. What a way for a country to start a new year!"

The editorial went on at some length in this vein---decrying Buddhist New Year alcoholic excess, viewing with alarm the chaos on Bangkok's streets, noting with dismay the transformation of a holy ancient rite into a commercialized pedestrian-drenching bacchanalia. The Post came down especially hard on the Bangkok municipal government, which sponsored a water gun battle meant to secure a place in The Guinness Book of World Records for the event's duration and number of participants. Thailand did in fact edge out Spain in this under-appreciated area of endeavor.

I used to be in the editorial writing racket myself, so I know that these cautionary lectures are an obligatory feature of major holidays. And just as essential to the ritual is the habit of everybody in the known universe to merrily ignore all the stern admonitions.

By way of historical background, the Post editorial pointed out that "the ancient links [to harvest festivals] are still evident in many Songkran traditions. For example, the use of water to bathe the Buddha images, to pour on the elders' hands, or to splash one another, were all linked to the use of water in ancient rituals to cleanse the house, wash the ancestors' relics, and bathe the elders."

Bathe the elders! Plainly, that's what a gang of twelve-year-old girls had in mind when I went out to pick up the International Herald Tribune Wednesday morning and they came at me with a garden hose, a pail, and a couple of water guns that were the watery equivalents of rocket-propelled grenade launchers. I was prepared---I had a waterproof camper's sack with me and the paper money in my pocket was carefully wrapped in a 7-Eleven bag. As one does, I chortled and walked on. Later in the day, Joe actually went looking for trouble. Appropriately clad, he walked over to Silom Road, where the mayhem was in full splash. The gay bars on Soi 2 were providing the disco thumpa-thumpa and the ten-thousand-plus mob of young and young-at-heart Thais and farangs were whooping and hooting with glee. I took the subway over and peered down on the Silom scene through my lorgnette from the sky walk up above, and then, clutching my IHT in its wrapper, beat it.

We had planned on going to Hua Hin, down on the gulf, for Songkran. But our friends there, Simon and Poe, were away---visiting a sick friend in the U.S.---and anyway we have some loose ends to tie up before leaving for home on the 20th. So we stayed in Bangkok and were glad we did. Songkran was poignant this year. It was the first April in three years when the city hasn't been wracked by political turmoil. This time last year the Red Shirts were occupying the central business district and rampaging around town in their pick-ups and noisy motorbike convoys. There had already been some deadly violence and more was to follow. Sad to say, many of the protesters' legitimate political and economic grievances remain. Discontent continues at a low rumble. Elections set for June might or might not help.

Speaking of which. One thing we are not eager to come home to is the toxic political environment in the U.S. Will somebody please fix that before we arrive in Boston Friday morning?

Our stay in Southeast Asia this year---our fifth---has been less adventurous than before, but satisfying in its own ways. We've loved having our own home in Bangkok and hope we can do it again next year. We've even been productive. I finished a book (RED WHITE BLACK AND BLUE will be out in September), and Joe has made good progress on the Bangkok street food guide he and Poe have been working on. And he's got thousands of great pictures he's trying to figure out what to do with.

We'll miss Thailand, especially (but not exclusively) the food. While you're at it, could some of you please do something about the impoverished American diet before we get home? What we are eager to return to, of course, are the family and friends we love. Don't go anywhere; we're practically on our way. We depart Bangkok late Wednesday, fly for seven hours, spend ten hours in lovely Seoul, fly for 14 hours, spend a night in lovely Detroit (since Delta merged with Northwest, Detroit beckons), and then it's on to Boston early Friday.

Has it stopped snowing there yet?