In the days before Songkran, families and temple communities prepare the ceremonial water with careful attention. Clean water is infused with fragrant flowers — most commonly white jasmine, rose petals, and pandanus leaves — and sometimes mixed with a few drops of perfumed oil or sacred herbal water prepared by the temple monks. The resulting liquid carries both a beautiful fragrance and a layer of additional spiritual potency, its ingredients chosen for their associations with purity and auspiciousness in Thai and Brahmanistic tradition.

The Buddha images chosen for the ceremony are typically the most venerated in the temple — ancient images with accumulated spiritual power, or the principal image enshrined in the main hall. In some communities, a beloved image is carried in a ceremonial procession through the village or neighbourhood before the bathing rite begins, allowing those unable to attend the temple to pay their respects and receive a blessing as the image passes their door.

In Chiang Mai, the ceremony reaches its most elaborate expression in the annual procession of the Phra Buddha Sihing — one of the most sacred Buddha images in northern Thailand, normally enshrined at Wat Phra Singh. During Songkran, this ancient image is brought out and carried through the city on an ornate float, accompanied by monks chanting, traditional musicians playing, and thousands of devotees lining the streets to pour water as it passes. The water poured onto the image in this procession is believed to carry extraordinary blessings, and the opportunity to touch the collected water is considered a rare and powerful merit-making event.

In Bangkok, the Grand Palace and Wat Pho host their own formal song nam phra ceremonies attended by members of the royal family, reinforcing the deep connection between the Thai monarchy, Buddhism, and the continuity of the Thai nation. For ordinary Thai people across the country, however, the ceremony remains most meaningful when performed close to home — at the neighbourhood temple where one was blessed as a child, in the company of family, with the quiet intention of entering a new year with a clean heart and an open spirit.