The Ultimate Guide to the Songkran Water Festival in Chiang Mai

Locals say Chiang Mai is the best place to celebrate the Songkran Water Festival, and not without fair reason. What it lacks in Bangkok’s and Pattaya’s crazy parties, Chiang Mai more than makes up for with all-out water fights, particularly around the walled, moated old city. Nowhere else in the Thai kingdom will you see so much water flying as in the “Rose of the North,” as the northern Thai city in a verdant valley is called.

Chiang Mai combines fun and culture, starting off the festivities in the old town with an opening ceremony at Tha Pae Gate, where people typically wear traditional costumes. It includes giving alms to monks in orange robes. Here’s what else you can expect from walking around in Chiang Mai during Songkran 2024 – plus how to enhance your experience using the Chiang Mai Day Pass.

The Start of Songkran in Chiang Mai

While the water festival traditionally kicks off on the 13 of April, expect to get things going in Chiang Mai a day earlier. By the 13, it will take you hours to walk around the moat of the provincial capital. Most people start the water fray at the Tha Pae Gate, one of the best places to celebrate Songkran in Thailand. You can also set off at Chiang Mai Gate and wander around the four-kilometer circuit of the square moat. The Ping River is for you if you want to experience some sort of “Songkran light,” so to speak, with fewer revelers lying in wait than in the old town.

But this Thailand festival is about more than water battles. When Songkran kicks off, Thai people ritually bathe statues of Buddha, clean their homes, and join parades for monks.

What Actually Happens During Songkran in Chiang Mai

As you stroll with your water gun slung cross-body style, you will encounter wild scenes in the street. People use anything from high-pressure water guns and buckets filled with iced water to hose pipes, and stages with powerful sound systems are set up all around the moat.

Food-wise, you can count on street vendors and hawkers peddling noodle- and rice-based dishes and drinks. But why nosh in the street when you can eat in restaurants like the Barefoot Restaurant? The Chiang Mai Premium Pass includes juicy beef, pork, or vegetarian lasagna with cooked cream at this restaurant on Tha Pae Road – the center of the action.

Don’t be surprised if locals affectionately daub your cheeks with a scented paste called Din-Sor-Pong. A mixture of water and natural limestone talc, this gray-white paste on your face is a symbol of protection, more so during the water festival in Thailand, which can feel like mayhem.

Pick-up trucks circle the moat at a snail’s pace for hours on end, and pumping beats throb out of car speakers as walkers drench people on motorbikes, flinging the contents of buckets of iced water. That’s precisely why you’d better hop on an electric tuk-tuk. This type of transportation service within 10 kilometers is one of the benefits of the Chiang Mai Premium Pass.

Somewhere along the road, you will see kids wielding hoses and dancing to Thai music. Once they run out of water, they fuel up at the moat, ready to give visitors a flavor of Chiang Mai’s way of welcoming the Thai New Year, hollering, “sawat-dee pee mai (Happy New Year).

Discovering Songkran’s Spiritual Side

If you wonder where to celebrate Songkran in a more relaxed way, visit one of the many temples in the old town of Chiang Mai. That’s where the other side of the Songkran Water Festival Thailand comes to light. Temples are retreats where monks and the elderly come to pray, meditate, and use the public holiday to ring in the Thai New Year more mindfully.

During processions, Buddha statues are carried through the streets of Chiang Mai, and people gently throw cleansing and perfumed water onto the statues. Revelers also cleanse Buddha statues at temples. And, once it has touched the statues, the perfumed water becomes blessed water that is believed to bring good luck to family members.

While the Songkran Water Festival in Chiang Mai has both secular and religious aspects, these are the most noteworthy religious activities in Chiang Mai:

• Temple visits – locals give alms and make offerings to foster good luck in the new year. Often, they offer sweet-smelling flowers and incense, or foods such as rice. Typically, the ceremony is accompanied by the chant of prayers.
• Merit-making – Making merit is an essential part of Thailand and its culture, and more so during the Songkran Water Festival in Chiang Mai. This, too, is about donating rice and other foods.
• Bathing of Buddha statues – during the water festival, many residents of Chiang Mai engage in Buddha bathing activities. People pour fragrant water over pictures to represent the purifying act. Thais believe that this will bring about good fortune in the coming year.

The Best Place to Celebrate Songkran

Small enough to be manageable yet big enough to provide all the fun that comes with Songkran, Chiang Mai, and its moat is undoubtedly the best place to enjoy the water festival in Thailand, as mentioned earlier.

Are you ready to walk out of your hotel room and embrace buckets of ice water hurling well-aimed at your face? Take it in stride, enjoy child-like happiness with a water gun slung over your shoulder, and remember to travel the wallet-friendly way with the Chiang Mai Day Pass or the Chiang Mai Premium Pass – both of which are available for a low-priced flat fee.