My understanding was the ban would not affect foreigners but what if it did apply to everyone? Like most people, I suspect, I enjoy sitting down with a cold glass of something alcoholic while on vacation; but having to abstain for a short while really wouldn’t bother me.

There is precedence for enforced abstinence, albeit on religious rather than health & safety grounds.

The best known is probably the Holy Month of Ramadan when Muslims commemorate the revelation of the Holy Quran to the Prophet Mohammed. During this month Muslims are required to fast from dawn until dusk, abstaining from eating and drinking, sex and smoking. The impact of this on tourists, in Dubai for example, is that “visitors should not be seen eating in public places during Ramadan. During Ramadan all Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. Eating, drinking and smoking in public areas during daylight hours should be avoided.

Hotels provide meals at restaurants that are not exposed to the public view in the fasting hours.” Ramadan this year is 21 August until 19 September 2009.

So no booze during the day and consumption behind closed doors at night. Does that put tourists off visiting at that time? I don’t know: what do you think?

Let’s look at another case: Nyepi Day, a Hindu holiday in Bali.

On this day the island stops. Everything is quiet: there is no transport, which includes aircraft (the airport is closed) and tourists must stay inside their hotels. This is even more dramatic than banning alcohol but does it put tourists off visiting at that time? Well in all my years of arranging holidays to the island I did not experience any negative reactions. Nyepi Day this year is on Thursday 26 March.

My view is that if we are going to visit other countries we must respect their laws and mores; if we are unhappy about them for any reason then obviously we can choose not to go. Personally I think Thai New Year is a lot of fun and I am sure it would continue to be so with or without the alcohol. What do you think?

Songkran Festival (Wikipedia Commons)

Thai New Year (mid-April), Songkran, is celebrated as exuberantly in Thailand as any New Year anywhere. The Thai authorities are concerned however about the number of road accidents that occur at that time. Most of them they say are down to excess alcohol. And as a result there is much talk at the moment about putting a ban on the sale of booze during the holiday period. The ban would only apply to Thai citizens.

As you can see from this article in the Bangkok Post there is doubt that such a ban is enforceable.

All of this seems at odds with the following description of the festival:

“The highlight of the festival will include the younger Thais paying respect to their elders by sprinkling their hands with scented water.” Sounds innocent enough.

“Songkran” is a word from the Sanskrit which means to “move into” and refers to the orbit of the sun moving into Aries. It marks the end of a 12-month cycle and the beginning of a new solar year.

The Songkran Festival marking the beginning of the Thai New Year is celebrated annually between 13 and 15 April, although there are slight variations around the country.

I have been in Thailand twice now during the Songkran Festival and I soon discovered that the Songkran Festival involves a whole lot more than “sprinkling their hands with scented water”. In some parts of the country, particularly Chiang Mai, there are beauty pageants, processions, merit-making – and for Thais everywhere it is SANUK (fun) … and then some.

The unsuspecting visitor needs to know that water features very heavily in the celebrations and everyone, particularly Westerners, takes the ‘water sprinkling’ to the nth degree! Out come heavy-duty water pistols, buckets, water butts and hosepipes – anything in fact that can guarantee everyone around gets truly soaked. Oh, and don’t forget the flour and talcum powder. Yes, there is also a very high chance you will be showered with white powder. You can imagine what happens when those two mix with water!

If you venture out of your hotel, day or especially night, during the Songkran Festival at the very least you can expect to get wet: passengers in open-back Baht buses are particularly vulnerable – sitting targets in fact. One of the waiters at our hotel said he had changed clothes twice that morning, half-way through the festival, as a result of soakings he had received before starting work.

I can understand how alcohol would take its toll during this period (pretty much like anywhere really) although I have never witnessed any true excesses. What I did see though was a motor cyclist, who are particularly vulnerable, almost knocked from his bike by the force at which water was thrown at him. In Cambodia last year they banned such excesses and I can understand Thailand trying to follow suit but I am not sure how successful they will be.

Anyway, during the Songkran Festival be ready for anything, leave the good clothes in your hotel room, relax and have fun.