Celebrated for centuries, the Songkran Festival is Thailand’s biggest and most important festival. Lasting three days: April 13-15, this is a time of spiritual renewal and purification, where Thai people often leave the big city of Bangkok to return to their hometowns and show their love and respect to their ancestors.
The first day of Songkran, Maha Songkran, people clean their homes, schools and temples, and participate in Song Nam Phra, where they pour scented water over the torso and body of a Buddhist statue as a symbol of washing away sins and bad luck and bringing purification.
The next day, called Wan Nao, families prepare traditional Thai dishes, desserts and fruit and put together packages of daily necessities, candles, flowers, or incense for the monks. They also perform the Rot Nam Dam Hua ceremony, in which children pour scented water over the hands or feet of their parents and elders, asking forgiveness for their transgressions and receiving blessings. Some families will also go to the temple to make Chedi Sai, sand pagodas, as a spiritual offering, and other families will release caged birds or fish into the wild as a way of creating good karma.
