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In my last blog I mentioned the Mon people and their Songkran, which was usually held one week after ours.

It had been too many years since the last time we went through one of their communities in Pra Pradaeng, Samut Prakarn.   However, that only time we arrived at the site a few hours too late and saw nothing but deserted streets littered with empty plastic bags.

We had always wanted to see the difference between our Songkran and theirs, but somehow we had always missed the Mons' Songkran.

On Sunday afternoon we finally had a chance to go, but as soon as we got there we discovered that it was a big mistake to have made such a decision!

We found ourselves completely trapped in a severe traffic jam where all the vehicles – with the exception of the motorbikes – moved only a few inches per many minutes.

It took us 5 - 6 hours to get out of the jam whereas normally it would take less than half an hour to get home from that area.

Along the way we saw lots of splashers both on the sidewalks and on the pick-up trucks.   Each truck had at least one 200-litre drum of water on it.

A few splashers wore masks and one of them dressed himself as Bin Laden carrying two "formidable" water guns.

Loud "music" (I would say it was just noise) was heard all the way.

Powder was used to mix with water and to be dabbed on others' (mostly strangers') cheeks and car windows.

I do not think there were many Mons among the crowd.   The spree looked no different at all from the 5-day Thai Songkran a week earlier.

As it was already Sunday afternoon, which was the last few hours of the 3-day celebration, there were many drunk and soaked people, some with heavily caked powder on their faces, having been dabbed again and again by many strangers.

The cars on the streets looked very messy, too.   Occasional ambulance sirens added excitement to the crowd.   Policemen could be seen in small groups here and there.   They too were soaked.

With the noise of horrible music I felt it too much like an open-air wet discotheque.

Regardless of the incredible madness that we witnessed during Mon's Songkran, the Mon culture has always been well-known as a very old and elegant one.

There are old Mon communities in Ko Kret ( Kret Island) of Nonthaburi province, which is located to the north of Bangkok.

Here are pics of Ko Kret.
*Note: The link in the above was outdated.
In October 2019 I found wikipedia very helpful.
Here is the landmark picture of Ko Kret from the link in the above:

The other major Mon community is in Prapradaeng in Samut Prakarn province, which is not far from where I live.   Their Songkran festival is more "lively" than the national Songkran a week earlier than theirs.   From what we saw through our car windows, I would say it was crazier than crazy!

I found a good introduction of the Mon People on Richard barrow's page: Mon Cultural festival in Thailand

* Remarks added on Jan-13-2011:
•   Richard's article in the link above was about the Mons not in Pra Pradaeng, but in Samut Sakhon, a province to the west of Samut Prakarn.
•   Wikipedia also has good info on the Mon People.

I always wondered when and from where the Mon people came to Thailand. The textbooks said they were from Myanmar, but I have never met any Mons that speak Thai with Myanman accent.

The Mons pronounce the "r" sound of the Thai language so beautifully.

Some of them are of white complexion, making them no difference from the Chinese-Thais or the northern Thais, whereas some have big eyes and curly hair, and are very dark-skinned, a bit like Khmer people from Cambodia.

One of my elementary school teachers was a Mon.   I always thought her very "Thai".

I guess the first group of the Mon people came and settled in Thailand since ancient time.   I remember my history textbooks in the elementary school said their diaspora happened because they had lost their country in the wars.

(FYI, I did not go to school in Thailand after I finished my elementary school.   Schools in other countries that I went hardly mentioned this people.)

I was so glad when I came across this book in B2S Central Bangna:

(front cover)


(back cover)

Quotes from the book:

Sounds familiar?   But the cultural groups involved here are certainly much, much older than the Americans, and the "mixture" more thorough -- at least this is what I have seen in the Royal Kingdom of Thailand.

Read about the author, David K. Wyatt   HERE .

I have always been interested in the Thai culture, myself being a Thai citizen since I was born.   I was away for a long time during my earlier years so what I knew about the Thai history, literature, and everything was limited.   My parents had become Thai citizens not long before I was born.

Although I now can read and write the language fluently I still have problem with the archaic Thai, especially the history books.   It is a lot easier for me to begin reading Thai history in modern English.   I might look for history books in the Thai language after I have done this current one.