We've heard that Songkran before

Party-loving tourists from around the world converge on Thailand in mid-April for the three-day nationwide water fight that is Songkran, the Thai new year celebration. The streets of Chiang Mai are awash, literally, with water-gun-toting revelers and curbside hosers,  everyone hooting and hollering and spraying and getting sprayed. To venture outside is the same as saying to the world: drench me.

Lian and I watch most of Songkran at home on TV.

Going to work during Songkran is problematic for Lian: she cannot run the gauntlet and then arrive soaking-wet for customer appointments, nor is it safe to ride her motorbike while being sloshed with bucketfuls of water. As for me, three consecutive nights of 2 a.m. teleconferences with West Coast clients leave me stupefied with sleep deprivation. Oh, and Lian complains: "Have pain my stomach." And then I remember that I really can't shoot action pictures for fear of frying my not-waterproof iPhone battery. We manage two or three additional lame excuses apiece for being pathetic old farts.

So we plop ourselves down in front of Thai TV channel 3 for wall-to-wall Songkran coverage -- only the finest in broadcast journalism here, folks -- and promise ourselves that next year, by golly, next year ...

Oh, and the above video? Shot it two years ago. As Lian says, "Songkran same every year."

"Hello, Burma!"

Last week during a project kickoff teleconference with a brand-new client, a team member perks up at the mention of my whereabouts. It turns out that his very good friends, fellow Portlanders, have just embarked on a one-year family adventure living in Chiang Mai. Without so much as a reconnaissance visit they up and relocate themselves and their 8-year-old son halfway around the planet, because why not? My kind of folks!

The next day email introductions are made and we arrange to meet up for a welcome dinner Saturday night at a Burmese restaurant near Thapae Gate, in the old city. Saturday also happens to be Lian's birthday, so we have another reason to celebrate.

But Lian is less than enthused to learn where we are dining. She makes an I-smell-poo face and says: "Food Burma maybe not good. I think I don't like." Never mind that she has not actually tasted Burmese cuisine before.

Lian pronounces "Burma" the way Jerry Seinfeld used to seethe: "Hello, Newman!" At the sight of a grubby beggar in the street, she's apt to speculate: "I think he not Thai -- maybe from Burma." The smoky haze that hangs over Chiang Mai this time of year? Slash burning from forests in the north ... "from Burma." When I inform Lian that much northern Thai cuisine such as khao soi has Burmese origins, she is horrified and refuses to believe it.

Andrew & Pati Goodell with son Ethan.

Finally I play the "polite" card: our new friends have chosen the restaurant, so we can be gracious and enjoy ourselves -- which we do. The Godell Family is perfectly delightful (although still a little jet-lagged) and the restaurant turns out to be a real find -- over the course of two hours we work our way through plate after plate of skillfully prepared dishes, and the tab for five is just over thirty bucks, including tip.

A few days later Lian asks: "We can eat in that restaurant again?" So maybe there's hope for this girl.

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A previous post last week was something along the lines of: "Golly, this Buddhist monk sure sounds a lot like Dave Matthews." But now I'm entertaining the possibility that he might actually BE Dave. I was seated behind an enormous stone column in the temple when I recorded the chanting, so I never got a good look at him. Supporting this theory is the following mashup created by bro-in-law Brian, who reported: "Strangely, no pitch correction at all."

Monks Marching

Wat Chedi Luang

It is pick-any-day-of-the-week, and therefore a Thai Buddhist ritual is happening somewhere in Chiang Mai. On my first day back in town I accompany Lian to Wat Chedi Luang, the ancient and immense temple in the heart of the old city, for some kind of robe-upgrade ceremony for child monks. I am thrilled to attend because, hey, free buffet!

Children-monks receive their new colors.

By noon hundreds of the faithful are gathered on the temple grounds to watch their freshly shorn little dears receive spanking-new saffron robes. After strafing the food tables Lian and I take our seats under a huge outdoor canopy. Soon the temple assistants drop sets of neatly folded robes in our laps. Moments later, the white-clad youngsters file in and kneel before us, palms pressed together in respect. I feel a little sorry for the kid in front of me who's stuck getting his new duds from some big goofus farang. The prayers drone on and this nervous boy and I really don't know where to look, other than down. Finally the children-monks are allowed to go change into their new robes while the audience moves inside to sit cramped and cross-legged on the granite floor of the temple. It's time for the requisite chanting -- the Buddhist version of the sermon with the supper.

Ice cream social.

It turns out that the young monk on lead vocals is ... pretty good! He mixes up the usual droning monotone with some thin but confident falsetto riffs that sound strangely familiar. And then I place it.

These things creep me out.

"This guy is absolutely a Dave Matthews fan," I whisper to Lian, who has no idea what I'm talking about. At least he sounds kind of Dave-ish to me. What would you say?