Songkran is a festival that I don't often see. Most years we return to the UK round about the beginning of April. But this year we are still here and I went down to Koh Samui to spend a few days with our son and his family who were back in Thailand for the first time in several years. Dominic's wife is from Samui but although I had met many of her family I had never been to their home. So it was a good opportunity to put that right and I must say that everyone was very welcoming and made me wonder why I had not been before. Part of the reason was that I had thought Samui was another Pattaya but I now know better. I loved the place, and I loved the close family feeling we got as we moved around from house to house visiting Jay's mother, her brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately I also had a slight accident so some of her cousins we met when I was at the Samui Hospital where they are nurses.
Because of my accident, I didn't go out on the streets to celebrate Songkran but stayed in the resort recuperating a bit while they went out with their water guns. But first we celebrated in the traditional way. This Buddha image had been set up in the reception area, along with a bowl of scented water. I felt that as well as for the new year, I was in need of a bit more blessing than usual to balance out my accident, so finding this seemed quite auspicious.
To start with, we each blessed the Buddha image by pouring water over it very gently.
Ben ...
Kim ...
Jay ...
... and Dom:
And then it was my turn to receive blessings. From Jay ...
... Ben ...
... and Kim:
And finally Ben and Kim blessed their parents:
It was a very nice preliminary to the wilder celebrations out on the streets.
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