21 Apr, 2023
This year’s Songkran festival started earlier than anticipated in Pattaya and Jomtien areas and many tourists were not informed about the madness until they got out of their hotels soaked.
Bargirls and foreign tourists were seen throwing water onto vehicles and people walking by on the beach road since April 11 and it didn’t end until the final day on April 19 the famous ‘Pattaya Wan Lai day’. People fully enjoyed the week-long of cooling off from the high temperature that also ended the three-year long of waiting. Hotel, apartment and guesthouse occupancy rate peaked during the week.
As people got used to the scene of heavy traffic congestions in almost all roads and streets, this year again the incident repeated itself on Wednesday.
Police tried their best to manage the traffic flow on the day as they have sat and planned with the City Hall officials two weeks earlier but when people started to come out of their homes all at once in the afternoon, the situation was different. Prohibited high-pressure water pipes were also seen sold and used by some tourists. Sales of alcohol seemed to peak again on the day. Bars were packed with foreign tourists since morning while pubs that were the usual meeting points of Thais were also seen full-house on the night.
Nevertheless, the fun was all people expected to have on the day as there were no such events in April since 2020. Thousands flocked to the beach road to join the splash. Some came with water guns, some with powder buckets. Young boys and girls were seen traveling on motorbikes, while many were seen standing with water tanks in the back of pickup trucks on major roads in the inner section of the city, on the streets in the east side of Pattaya and of course on Sukhumvit road. The beach road central-south section and Walking Street were closed for parade and people to embrace the joy in the afternoon. Police cars moved down on the beach road and around town to signal the completion of Wan Lai at around midnight and the water war was officially over by then. Things got back to normal on Thursday. See you again in April next year!
