Happy New Year

Today is the final day of a three-day holiday celebrating Thai New Year. Thailand's biggest holiday, traditionally Songkran is a time of happiness and family togetherness. For me, it breeds nothing but fear and resentment.

The hottest days of the year, the tradition developed that friends, family and neighbors would lightly sprinkle water on each other to cool off. Sometimes the water was perfumed, or some cooling power was used to make people feel better. The water sprinkling has escalated, though, into all-out water wars. Powder clouds fill the air in big celebration places, like town centers and the backpacker ghetto of Khao San Road in Bangkok.

If you're in the holiday mood, it can be fun. I've been there. Done that. These days, I really don't want to get drenched. The light sprinkle is fine, but that is hard to find in this land of buckets, barrels, hoses and high-pressure water guns. It's difficult to travel anywhere without getting drenched, unless precautions are taken. I take taxis with the windows rolled up and keep my PDA and phone in a Ziploc bag.

It's a time of death, too, as people are driving to their upcountry homes. Inevitably there is drinking going on, as well as many tired drivers.

This year, there were 654 deaths as a result of road accidents, and more than 36,000 injuries, according to The Nation.

But what Thai government is concerned with is the wearing of "spaghetti strap" tops by women attending Songkran festivities. The stroppy tops have been banned. Yet the last couple days, the local newspapers have shown foreign women wearing bikini tops. So there's a double standard being applied. It's okay for foreign women to show off their stuff, but Thai women are being told to put on a sleeved shirt. The "spaghetti strap" ban is ridiculous anyway. Looking back at traditional Thai garments, there were no straps. In the historical epics, women are wearing a wrap-around tube-top garment as a top, exposing their midriffs. And I suspect at one time, women wore no tops at all.