Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 08:16:59 -0500 From: Phanny Subject: SUB: CONTEST: Humor: Vignette: Songkran, 1975 Songkran, 1975 The national festivals of Thailand revolve around either the Royal dynasty or the New Year. Since the dynasty is long-lived you would expect a lot of festivals devoted to them and you'd be right. Since the year has only one beginning, you'd expect only one New Years celebration. In this you would be wrong, because there are three. The first one corresponds to what we in the West celebrate as corporate-sponsor bowl day. The Thais celebrate this one the way we do; they eat and drink to excess. The second one is Chinese New Year in late January or early February. On this day also, they eat and drink to excess, but they eat Chinese food. The third New Years' festival is called Songkran. It takes place in mid-April, the hottest, driest month in Southeast Asia. Thais celebrate Songkran by shutting down the country for three days and having a water fight. Now, this is a water fight of Armageddon proportions. People arm themselves not with water pistols or even super soakers, but with hoses, buckets and plastic bags of water. No one escapes getting soaked. The only rule is that no water may be thrown after sundown. The favorite targets are beauty queens high up on parade floats, who are easily distinguishable by the streaks of mascara ruining their gowns, and westerners who can be recognized by an excess of fat and a look of bewilderment at the aggressive, well- organized bucket brigade following in their wake. As our fourth April in Thailand rolled around, Mary Fran, my wife, declared, "We have to get out of here. Anywhere that is safe and sane." We chose Laos. Laos, in April 1975, the last month of the Vietnam War, was probably the safest and sanest country in Southeast Asia. At least they weren't shooting, and, we hoped, they would not be throwing water. We were wrong about that. We flew into Vientiane, the administrative capitol of Laos, and one of the two places open to visitors. The other place was the Royal Capitol, Luang Prabang. The communist insurgents, who called themselves the Pathet Lao, had total control of the countryside and shared control of the two capitols with the Royal forces. Since the Vientiane airport was outside of the city, the road between the city and the airport was also under joint control. Pathet Lao patrols, in their odd-looking Chinese vehicles and their baggy uniforms were easy to spot on the way into the city. More ominous, though, were the preparations for the New Years festival. We checked into the Constellation Hotel, which had acquired a reputation during the war as the foreign correspondents hotel. It was a lot more comfortable than the Chinese hotels we were accustomed to, but the real attraction of the Constellation was its bartender, Maurice. Maurice was French Vietnamese. He spoke English, French, Vietnamese, and Lao; he knew everything and everybody -- where to get the best black market exchange rate, how to get a visa, whom to bribe and how much to pay. I suspect that Maurice was the authoritative source cited in most of the dispatches from the war. Had he been in Casablanca, he would have been the usual suspect. His reputation had recently been enhanced by John LeCarre who wrote him into his novel, the Honorable Schoolboy. We went straight to the bar and asked Maurice what we should do. Maurice, thinking we wanted advice on how to get along with the Pathet Lao, began the litany: Obey all signs; do not go out of the city; and do not try to pass any check points. "No," Mary Fran said, "How do we keep dry?" "Stay inside,' said Maurice. Staying inside during the day was not so bad. In the first place, it was hot outside. In the second place, Vientiane had a thriving night life in the cafes and restaurants along the Mekong and the same rule applied as in Thailand, no water throwing after sundown. Finally, Laos, a former French colony, had an abundance of two things lacking in Thailand -- wine and cheese. With a good supply in our room we didn't need to go out. The Laotian approach to water throwing, I discovered, was not as aggressive as the Thais. The Laotians were more defensive. They dropped water from balconies, and squirted hoses from hiding. I finally figured out a tactic to beat them. By sprinting down the middle of the street, I could reach the wine shop and return with two bottles of Algerian Red, while taking nary a hit. We were so successful in our forays that, on the third day, we decided to risk going out to dinner before sundown. We took a cab to a French restaurant which was located on the road to the airport. To our dismay, we were too early. We had an hour to kill. Not being a couple who sit around during cocktail time, we decided to watch the sunset from one of the restaurants along the river. I found a street heading in that direction and started walking. Unfortunately for us, we had forgotten how far from the city we had come. The street continued for a block or two before the pavement ended and was replaced by a gravel road. Neither of us considered this, in itself, alarming, because such things were not uncommon in Southeast Asian cities. Nor were we alarmed that there were fewer houses around us. Another block or two and the gravel was replaced by a dirt road. Now, Mary Fran was alarmed. "Do you think we're getting out in the country?" she asked. "No, the river's just ahead," I said. The dirt road got narrower and the undergrowth got thicker. Mary Fran suggested going back. I thought we should go on. "I think we missed a sign," she said. "Trust me," I said. Sure enough, the path ended at the river, but not at a broad street lined with cafes. Instead, there was only a dirt path, a lot of brush and the mighty Mekong. I insisted on taking the new path, still believing we'd find a cold beer at the end. Mary Fran, who tends to look on the dark side of a crisis, kept reminding me of Maurice's warnings: Don't go out in the country, obey all signs, don't pass checkpoints. I figured we hadn't seen any signs, and we weren't that far out in the country. We came around a bend in the path and saw, up ahead, the city, no more than a football field away. There was the broad street, the cafes and bars of our quest, shimmering like fabled El Dorado. But between us and them stood a checkpoint manned by a Pathet Lao soldier. And we were on the wrong side. Now, many of the Pathet Lao soldiers we'd seen in Vientiane looked like recruits right out of junior high. Not this one. He looked like a hardened veteran. You could read the history of the war on his face. It was seamed and leathery, eroded by a decade of hiding in caves and eating bamboo shoots, burnished by his hatred of the enemy. He was looking right at us. Going back the way we had come would be a sure admission of guilt. So we did the only thing we could do, the only thing anybody would do under the eyes of a communist guard; "Act natural," I said. So we did. We headed to the checkpoint acting natural as could be. He wasn't fooled. We'd just reached the guardhouse when he ordered us to halt. "Yut" he said in Lao. We yutted. Mary Fran grabbed my hand as this Pathet Lao veteran rushed out of the guardhouse. "We're done for," she whispered. And indeed we were. For slung over his shoulder was a fearsome-looking assault rifle, an AK-47, and, in his hand, he carried a huge bucket of water. He stopped in front of us, bowed, and with a, "Happy New Year", dumped it over our heads. Then he pointed to sun, which was barely visible above the horizon, and laughed.