Bangkok Has Offered a Songkran Escape Route, and It Floats

Just when Bangkok appears ready to spend Songkran blasting one another senseless with ice water and industrial optimism, the city has produced a civilised alternative: free boat rides through the old town. This is the sort of announcement that makes long-term residents briefly believe the authorities may, on occasion, understand the assignment.

The Bangkok Water Festival will run from April 13 to 15 and link ten cultural stops along the Chao Phraya, which is to say you can drift between temples, old riverside communities and the usual small parade of excellent views without having to be ambushed by a teenager with a pressure cannon on Silom.

There are two routes. One moves through the more solemn, historic stretch — Wat Rakang, Wat Arun, Wat Kalayanamit, Wat Prayurawongsawat, Yodpiman and Wat Pho — while the other performs Bangkok’s favourite trick of pretending heritage and retail therapy are natural cousins, looping between Tha Tien, ICONSIAM and Khlong San.

The practical detail is the appealing one: you can hop on and off, switch routes at Tha Tien Pier, and make an entire day of it with very little effort beyond turning up in vaguely breathable clothing. There is even the reassuringly modest eight-baht ferry between ICONSIAM and Sathorn, plus the free Asiatique shuttle if you feel compelled to keep wandering after dark.

For expats who enjoy Songkran mainly as an anthropological spectacle best observed at slight remove, this may be the city’s finest seasonal compromise. You still get the river, the rituals and the civic theatre of it all — only with considerably less talcum powder in your eyebrows.