Water Festival (Songkran- Thai, Thingyon- Burma)

Water Fest is every child's dream come true: a week long, country-wide, all ages all out water fight! It was fabulous. It was one of the most fun weeks I have ever had. Plus it was dog hot and kept life bearable. It started out simple and easy going. Just some kids with water guns sitting by the street outside there house squirting people as they drove by. It progressed into this really elaborate thing as the days went on. It started from sun up and did not stop until sun down. People all lined the streets outside their houses or businesses with huge containers of water and plastic scoops (like the ones you use to flush the toilet). And the other people get in trucks, motorbikes, bikes and drive by almost like in parade as you all wage water war on each other. People started to get tricky and got ice water. Some other people get baby powder and wipe it all over your face, arms. (all of this is in theme of the new year and giving well wishes to the person you splash in the face or wipe goo on them). The locals especially love to bless the furangs. I ended up throughout the week every color of the rainbow (they must use chalk or food coloring for the baby powder). My face did not get sun burnt at least since I always had a huge coat of powder on it. The rest of the body was not so lucky. I did not get the kind of sunscreen that is water fest proof only sweat and water proof. I'll know for next time :) Some of the people even had baby powder that actually felt more like athlete's foot powder due to the stinging of our faces.

Most of the time we camped out at a restaurant called Ayia's (a Burmese local rest that all the former political prisoners hang out and a place that donates much of the money to local Burmese programs). They invited us and our friends to join them. We danced, threw water, attacked the other people around the other restaurants, ate some good food, and the time past so fast everyday). Even got some of the shy people to dance (my favorite pass time).
We even saw a dog getting into the fun.
We saw some Thai- Burmese kicking boxing. No gloves. Pretty intense.
It was intense to get there also (my bike had broken...again) so Aung Khine, myself and another Burmese man all piled onto a motorbike and drove through town being attacked by people, water splashed in our faces, eyes, noses, baby powder goo wiped all over our faces. We did not crash though. (About 5 people die each year at water fest).

One day we went with AAPP to the waterfalls in the area. We stopped at the tiered one first. This was more intense because when you got water thrown on you from the street to a fast moving car the water stung! I guess a good physics lesson. At one stop, Ben got marshmellow gooed, Danny got completely doused iin Thai whiskey and I got shrimped. A woman put some things in my mouth that at first looked like worms. I gaged and tried to politely spit them out, but instead she washed it down with a gallon of Thai whiskey. I saw one on the floor and realized it was raw shrimp she had feed me. Thank you. (I did get sick later that week, but who knows from what ).

The next water fall we stopped at was this tall one that you can see form the road on top of a mountain, lush green with a pagoda sitting next to it. Really pretty. Shortly after arriving. One of the AAPP guys motions to me to look at the kickboxing ring. There was Ben standing in the ring and soon Danny jumps up to join him. Pretty soon the Thai announcer is screaming to all the spectators to gather around and Ben and Danny give a performance. After the left the ring, many Thai men came up to congratulate them and wipe baby powder on their faces. It was as if they were famous from that point on and they and the rest of us Furang like people got bombarded with water, goo, and even got some kisses form the men and women. At one point some of the locals got a little carried away and happy and went a bit too far with myself. I got grouped and tongued. That was enough for me.
When we reached the top of the water fall there were drunk people dancing, running, jumping all along the top. I kept picturing someone diving headfirst to the bottom, but luckily while we were there no one got hurt. It was funny to see us scoot across the rocks and water while the Thais run and jumped. We got to go up into the back of the water. It was really beautiful.

Out last stop was the border and the Moei River. There were hundreds of people wading in the water, some of the AAPP guys stated how happy they were to be looking at Burma and how much they missed home. Ben and Will jumped in the filthy water and danced and swam along with the rest of everyone.




The last day there was a parade of sorts. Floats with pretty Thai girls, lots of really loud music and random weird art work slowly made their way by Ayia's all morning. There were tons of older Thai's dancing in the streets along with the float. It took Ben and I about 45 minutes to get to Ayia (usually less than 5 minutes) due to the constant demands to dance, drink whiskey, drink other weird things that we pretended to drink but threw away, and to eat food. The older Thais women loved me and the lady boys. At one point I got carried away with them and had to kind of duck away and run.

Every afternoon everyone would begin to dance; however, one afternoon a young Thai girl became upset because one of the Burmese people had thrown water on her. She said some pretty ignorant angry things (surprising because usually everyone just smiles here) This set a sour mood on the whole thing for the Burmese and I saw lots of sad looks and lots of words muttered about this was not their land that she was right. We tried to cheer them up, but for some it is just too painful to be away from their home.

Anyway, I hope that when I get back we can simulate a little bit of this water fest in MN over the summer. I'm thinking mid-August. So watch out if you come near me around that time your getting drenched!

Sukhothai

A group of us decided to visit Sukhothai . Sukhothai is one of Thailand’s ancient capitals. Like most of these former capitals it is plush with ancient ruins of beautiful temples and tons of historical sites. Steff, I and a group of friends from Mae Sot decided to bus down there and rent some motorbikes and take in the sites. If we thought riding a bicycle through Mae Sot was hair raising, then we found driving a motorcycle through a busy tourist city to be just plain dangerous (but fun).
We drove to the Sukhothai main ruin and explored. Steff found a tiny cave where she hide out waiting to scare us as we passed by. However, she did not manage to scare one of us, but rather a random Thai tourist. Within minutes we were dripping sweat and began to miss the “cool” climate of Mae Sot up in the mountains. We could only handle a couple hours in the mid-day heat before we found some shade and cold beer. But before we could leave, Steff got her first taste of motorbike driving (around a moat). She managed not to fall in.

Later that night we returned for an awesome light show at the light-up ruins. There were glowing Buddhas and stone buildings. So beautiful looking at night. We happening upon a traditional Thai dance, music show. Where we saw dozens of these large floating candle lanterns released into the sky in intervals to create this glowing star-like pattern as they floated off into the night sky.
We capped off the night by eating at the Poo restaurant haha. We befriended a Thai ladyboy and had some interesting chats about the Indian caste system with our northern Indian friend.

The next day we drove about an hour outside of town to see some more ruins. Steff and I really just wanted to drive motorbikes. I rode on the back of the bike for the first time with Steff the whole way home (her first time going over 2nd gear). I was scared at first, we did almost get bucked off the bike the first steep hill we went up, but then she started to get the hang of it and is a motorbike natural.

On our way home we piled into a small, old, rusty van. We got about 10 meters before the van died. The next hour was spent watching the driver kicking and cursing at the engine trying to get it started again. We were unsure that this old bucket of bolts would get us up the mountains to Mae Sot, sure enough an hour up the mountain the van started to shake and make some crazy noises and some strange smells and died again on the side of a steep mountain. Luckily the van that jumped us early followed us the whole way (sometimes positioning themselves behind us to break our roll if we did not make it up the mountain). Luckily we broke down near a mechanic. The van was beyond repair, so they called another van from Mae Sot to pick us up. It was dark by then. As we waited we noticed a small stall a few feet down the road where we purchased some cold drinks. The husband came out and started to dance with us and the wife animatedly with gestures asked Nikki if she was a prostitute and kept hugging her repeatedly. Quite a strange moment.Finally the new van arrived. This van defiantly was not a bucket of bolts (we even had air con). This driver however, seemed to be a professional drag racer and scared the shit out of us by driving up the mo