{"id":538,"date":"2009-01-09T18:05:04","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T01:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/?p=538"},"modified":"2009-01-15T18:18:12","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T01:18:12","slug":"in-southeast-asia-the-new-year-begins-in-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/in-southeast-asia-the-new-year-begins-in-april\/","title":{"rendered":"In Southeast Asia, the New Year Begins in April"},"content":{"rendered":"<table border=\"0\" align=\"right\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/calnative images\/songkran.jpg\" alt=\"During Songkran, the Southeast Asian New Year, people cruise the street in pickup trucks loaded with kids throwing water.\" width=\"240\" height=\"181\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><em>Chauffeured by their parents, kids<br \/>\npatrol the streets with buckets and<br \/>\nwater guns, soaking all in range.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>While our year begins on January 1, in Southeast Asia the year begins on April 13.\u00a0 This is the first day of Songkran, also known as the \u201cWater Festival\u201d and the celebrations last for three days. Songkran celebrates the vernal equinox and is a favorite holiday in Thailand, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calnative.com\/myanmar\/\">Myanmar (Burma)<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calnative.com\/mekong\/mekong-cruise.html\">Laos<\/a> and Cambodia.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a time for fun, especially if you\u2019re a kid, and in the villages and towns, people in pickup trucks slowly cruise the streets, their truck beds loaded with kids equipped with buckets of water and \u201cSuper Soaker\u201d water guns.\u00a0 Water is constantly flying and everyone is wet, but nobody minds, since this is the hottest time of the year. In one city I watched the local kids and police fighting it out with squirt guns.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" align=\"left\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"margin: 4px; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/calnative images\/lee-rickshaw.jpg\" alt=\"Soaking wet California Native founder, Lee Klein, pedals his rickshaw back into the melee of Songkran's Water Festival.\" width=\"220\" height=\"197\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><em>Soaking wet California Native<br \/>\nfounder, Lee Klein, pedals his<br \/>\nrickshaw back into the melee of<br \/>\nSongkran&#8217;s Water Festival.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>During the time of Songkran, many community events and parades are held, both secular and religious, including the Miss Songkran beauty pageant. It also is a traditional time for family gatherings.<\/p>\n<p>As a tourist, it is a wet but great time to visit.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chauffeured by their parents, kids patrol the streets with buckets and water guns, soaking all in range. While our year begins on January 1, in Southeast Asia the year begins on April 13.\u00a0 This is the first day of Songkran, also known as the \u201cWater Festival\u201d and the celebrations last for three days. Songkran celebrates &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/in-southeast-asia-the-new-year-begins-in-april\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;In Southeast Asia, the New Year Begins in April&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[93],"tags":[49,48,247,95,94,96,33,13,14,97],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calnative.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}