Let me preface by saying I’m excited and appreciate Songkran as a festival.
If anything, it’s also similar to Indian festival – Holi – that I’ve celebrated in the past.
Having said that, on 1st day of Songkran, people were splashing water – I was excited and gleefully took most water on me to to shield my partner as much as I could, but my partner who’s pregnant (not visibly though), didn’t feel well after that – perhaps due to a combination of heat, humidity, and then water on top.
This made me cautious. We are literally stepping out of the hotel these days only for lunch and dinner and tried to avoid alleys where people were celebrating as much as we could – given we were avoiding and gesturing as such, most locals were happy to accept that.
However, on an intersection today near area with some bars, an aged white foreigner and a young Thai girl with him ended up throwing tons of water on me and my partner all of a sudden which made me upset and I approached the guy asking couldn’t he see we were saying *”No, please (and Mai, in Thai)*” and avoiding as such? only to end up getting into verbal fight with him + his Thai gf.
He said Songkran means* everybody gets water* while I told him – *there are exceptions to be made for people who don’t want to partake, and our verbal gesture and maneuver all pointed towards that*. When others could see that, why won’t you? After a minute of heated exchange with them and with Thai girl shouting *”go back to your country”*, we left.
**Is there a Thai phrase or anything that could help us with this?** Any local etiquette, way to avoid this? I am ok if people want to throw water on me but I really wished to have that on my partner.
#Just asking if there could be a polite way to request not splashing water on my partner?
(I myself am even okay with it)
