The Peaceful Songkran 2010- the "sand" seems not to exist..

Back to Bangkok with a nostalgic feeling sinking in the bottom of my mind. But yes, I am re-charged. And my life is back to normal in Bangkok. Songkran brought me to be close to village life and peaceful temples- close to northern Thai way of living, yet something has been missing from the way- many new things replace traditions- such as the pile of sand at the temples was not by the practice from folkway custom, where people would go to the river to get the sand in the bucket and bring it to the temples for building chedi. It was the belief that every time people went to the temple and when they walked out, they took the sand out with them. So every Songkran which is te Thai New Year, it was the tradition that people would bring the sand back to the temples, and so the temples could use that sand for any construction within the compound.

Nowadays, most temples just buy the sand for building their pagodas. Villagers' support is not neccessary anymore. Piling the sand becomes just the tradition with less and less meaning.