esterday, Koh Lanta was slow-paced and peaceful. The sun beat down on the necks of lumbering tourists as they fossicked for bargains

among the wooden elephants and racks of fishermen’s pants. Muslim women in bright headscarves shopped at the mar-kets, then roared off on motorbikes with their bags stacked in the front basket. Open-air taxis and tuk-tuks buzzed up and down the road, ferrying tourists from Baan Saladan, the island’s main town and con-nection point with Krabi, to resorts strung along the island’s wide beaches. Yesterday, Lanta was peaceful and benign.

Palm fronds litter the sand between the worn wooden verandahs of the bunga-lows that crouch along Klong Nin beach. It’s April, just gone off-season and Sal, the lean, bare-chested owner, is swing-ing in the hammock, smoking. His huts are mostly empty, the tide of visitors gone until November. The big rains are on their way. He squints at us as we stumble from the bungalow.

“Songkran today. Thailand Happy New Year. Big water fight. You want to go to Sal-adan? I’ll take the truck. Thailand festival. You want to go?”

A lazy push of his toe sets the hammock creaking on its canvas ties and he folds his hands behind his head, closing his eyes. The bowed palms shade stripes across his brown chest. “Biiiiig water fight in Sal-adan,” he repeats, puffing smoke.

It’s early April, one of the hottest days of the year in Thailand. We’ve come from

an ugly Korean winter and the heat is like a blanket, smothering all movement. Of course we want to go to Saladan.

The wind whips as we career the 12km into town, blue sea on our right, steep rainforest-green cliffs on our left. Eight of us – five Thai, a Canadian, a Kiwi, and a Brit who’s been here so long that her skin is as brown as the desiccated palm fronds – try to keep our balance on the sides of the tray on the big black Toyota, clutch-ing the buckets we’ve been told we’ll need. Sal’s eight-year-old kid is on guard by the cab, aiming a gigantic water gun with the focused, fanatical look of a sol-dier, his brown eyes scanning for targets. Ominously, drenched motorcyclists pass from the opposite direction, their pillion passengers squirting jets at the truck. Sal’s kid darts like one of the geckos on our bungalow wall, shrieking war cries and firing back. He quickly refills from the brimming chilly bin that skids across the truck at every bump, bumping our toes

and slopping water over our jandals. A slim boy in red shorts stands in the

centre of the road, his cheeks thickly striped with chalky white. He holds up a firm hand as we approach. He can’t be more than 12, but to our horror Sal slows to a halt, slapping down both door locks and winding up the windows in a rush. Through the back window of the Toyota he flashes white teeth and shakes his fist, yelling something that’s lost in the first attack.

At a bone-chilling “Ay-yi!” an army charges the Toyota and launches buck-ets of icy water over the truck. One hand grabs my arm and wipes something warm and gritty down it; another roughly smears something stinging in my eyes. I cower blindly on the deck, flailing with my pink plastic bucket. The others are scooping up water from the chilly bin and bailing it over the sides as fast as they can. Sal’s kid is screaming blue murder.

Mercifully, there’s a sudden lurch as Sal

guns the engine, and the noise falls away. As we accelerate I hear hoots of laughter and calls of “Sawatdee bee mai! Happy New Year!” Through blurry eyes I see the boy in red shorts jumping up and down in the middle of the road, waving a kitchen pot in victory. He snaps back to attention as a motorbike crests the hill. Its older Thai rider slows to a resigned halt and bows his head as the water courses over him, his attackers dancing a mad jig. He accepts a cheekful of white powder and rides off again sedately, wiping water from his eyes, and grinning.

In Saladan, tourists and locals stalk each other with water guns and buckets. Children leap from strategic positions in a furious ambush. A dreadlocked, sinewy Aussie has a sackful of the white powder and dives for every wet, squirming kid he can catch. A giggly cook comes waddling out of the kitchen and tosses a pan of water over us before ducking back inside. We stalk her through the restaurant, but she’s elusive, experienced in the ways of the annual game.

We cruise home in the evening, eyeing

the huge dark clouds brooding on the horizon. Fireworks pop through the dark trees. Buckets lie abandoned on the road-side. Everything is patchy with chalky residue like volcanic ash.

At dinner, Sal sobers us with news of the grim side of Songkran. “Five hundred people die last year,” he says, folding his legs under him on a thick embroidered cushion. “The idiots, you know, drinking and being crazy. And the motorbikes are so dangerous, water throwing everywhere. Many accidents on the road.”

He squints at the slate-blue horizon. “The rainy season is coming. No tourists.” His kid is now docile, squatting to pat the rangy cats slumped on the wide wooden boards of the verandah. We finally learn his name: Aroon.

The heavens thunder and crack some-where between spicy seafood salad and massaman curry, turning the edges of the vaulted thatched roofs into curtains of water. We spike our coconut shakes with rum and stare at the sea, hypnotised by the rain pocking its metallic surface. Lanta is peaceful again.

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