Songkran at Wat Thai of Los Angeles

With Thai Town’s Songkran Festival canceled, you’re left with attending temple events only. Out of all the options available, I decided I’d attend the Thai New Year (Songkran) Festival held at Wat Thai of Los Angeles. The event is held for two days straight but you can pick and choose which day you prefer to attend or just attend both days if you can!

It’s a free event along with free parking. I managed to get residential parking close to the temple but the festival does offer additional parking at Kaiser Permanente along with a shuttle service to/from the temple. Arriving somewhat early is good not only for the purpose of getting parking BUT to get food. When I arrived, there were hardly any lines to the food booths which meant that I would have gotten hot and fresh food rather quickly. I bring this up because by the time I got hungry and decided to buy food, the lines were either really long or the wait time was just ridiculous.

I settled for Pad Thai Boran thinking that my orders wouldn’t take too long, but I was wrong! It took almost 50 minutes for me to receive my order and by then I was hardly hungry but hungry enough to eat one of my orders: pineapple fried rice. It’s hard to judge whether the pineapple fried rice was truly good since I was hungry (and “hangry” if you will) and food tends to taste a lot better when you’re hungry. Let’s just say that I’m content to have gotten my fix for my pineapple fried rice. In other words, I’ve had better pineapple fried rice but I doubt any Thai restaurant in the states would be able to make it as scrumptious as the one I’ve had before.

My beef with this food booth is not that I’ve had better pineapple fried rice elsewhere but that they didn’t bother to tell customers in advance that the wait time for food was 50 minutes. Sure, they’d tell you if you asked prior to ordering but I think it would have been a lot more fair for them to just flat out put a sign in front of their booth with the estimated wait time for the food. This would allow super hungry people to buy food elsewhere if they’re expecting to get their food in 15 – 20 minutes. For an event day (Songkran), they really should have upped their manpower, such as bringing on an extra chef because a 50 minute wait time is just ridiculous.

So, my advice for you is to just order the food in advance even if you’re not yet hungry because when you do get hungry, it might take forever for you to get the food.

I don’t know how similar food booths were faring when it came to food wait time but I will say the drink booth had a wonderful system down. Everything was prepared in advance and you got what you wanted right then and there. Of course, drinks are without a doubt more simple to make and prepare than actual food but I need to give credit where it’s due. The ladies working the Wat Thai Cafe booth had a very efficient system down and I appreciated that.

I may have complained quite a bit about the 50 minute wait time for my food, however on the bright side, the food was cooked fresh, to order. I feel that on event days, food can just be cooked well in advance and kept heated Panda Express style so that chefs aren’t overworked and customers aren’t waiting too long for their food.

Next door was a patango booth and they had that heated style tray that would have come in handy for any food booth vendor. Obviously, I don’t know what the regulations are and whether they would even be allowed to hold food that way but I see that as an option, if possible.

Anyway, enough on the food.

Entertainment – Music

Let’s talk about the entertainment system. Near the food booths was a stage area where people sang. It was all fine and dandy until I heard someone singing Madonna’s “Like a virgin”. Like, why? Why are you singing this song at a religious site? I don’t know what other attendees may have thought, but I found this to be super distasteful. If the average church wouldn’t be cool with someone singing this song, what makes you think it’s OK to sing this song at a temple? Obviously, it was OK since no one dragged the singer off the stage but seriously, wtf was that about? Not cool. And it wasn’t just that song as there was some other song which was borderline inappropriate and sung on stage anyway. No. Just no. In addition to this being a religious site, this is supposed to be a family friendly event which means that young children are present. LA is known for cancel culture so why no one canceled these songs is beyond me.

On the other side of the temple was another stage. This stage was for the Songkran Pageant, Thai cultural performances and a fashion show that was modeled by the Songkran Pageant contestants. The contestants of the Songkran Pageant were beautiful. Of course, event attendees had their favorites and if you want to support a favorite(s), you can do so by buying a balloon(s) for that contestant. All of the contestants but two were able to speak Thai and I bring this up because I feel that points could possibly be docked off for not being able to communicate in Thai. But who knows…

The cultural performances were nice. One specific cultural performance that caught me off guard was not actually from Wat Thai of Los Angeles but from Wat Prathat Doi Suthep (Chino Hills). I was caught off guard because males were in the performance! LOL

I don’t know about you but cultural performances tend to consist of females so when males are present, it’s a nice and refreshing surprise.

If you want to see a portion of their performance, you can check out my video on YouTube.

Merit Making

People may be attending Songkran at Wat Thai of Los Angeles to have fun but there are also people present to make merit as well. Making merit can be done in a variety of ways. There are tables that you can approach to make merit. There are mini buildings with statues inside where you can have a moment to pray as well as make merit. You can also go inside the main temple to make merit. The opportunity to do “sangkatan” is provided many times throughout the event day. This can be confusing and easy to assume that once one or two are done, that is all when in actuality, you will most likely be able to do “sangkatan” if you want to. An efficient system is in place for it to happen and while it’s a seamless system, it can be off putting for some. For example, the water from water pouring during sangkatan is collected by a temple representative who holds a bowl for you to put it into when that water should actually be poured outside, over a tree or some other plant. It can be assumed that this representative will do it for you but it’s done collectively on your behalf with your poured water mixed with others’ poured water and that might not sit well for some people. Things have been altered and I want to think that it’s done that way for busy days, such as during Songkran and other event days when the temple expects many visitors. I want to think this isn’t the case on slow days, though.

Another area of possible confusion or the most area of confusion is in regards to making merit via rice or food. I don’t know where you need to go to be able to do that but what I do know is that you’ll probably be able to do that if you come on the day that gives you the opportunity to do so. This is most likely on Day 2 of their Songkran event. Just review the schedule of events that the temple provides on their website ahead of the event.

It was a rainy day, which was beautiful but because of the rain, I didn’t stay until the end to watch who had won the Songkran Pageant. I’m sure that information is out there somewhere, though. Watching the contestants on the runway, enjoying cultural performances and getting my pineapple fried rice was great. Now, if they can just do something about the horrendous food wait time and permitting people to sing songs they probably shouldn’t be singing at a temple…