The New Year is officially in full swing. It began with fireworks at midnight…and well…water!
Like usual, I joined the huge party on the side of the street, dancing, soaking each other, avoiding veracious lady boys, and spraying helpless motorists.

I was leaning down to fill my weapon with the green, murky, nasty water from the moat and some wise guy pushed me in. If I wasnt up to my ears in bacteria before, I am now for sure. No worries, Im sure I have ingested more scary things over the past 3 months. Speaking of ingesting interesting things….at the special market they had near Tapae Gate for the festival, they had fried bugs. I sampled a couple of the grubs and larvae. Actually not bad! It tasted like a potato so I had another. I’ll admit though, I was not man enough to try the giant fried cicadas which looked like all wings, eyes, and legs.

Here are the only few pics I could grab from the festival. Not so good, but the best I can do. I know better than to expose my camera to this festival with no protection.

Many Bothans died to bring you these pictures.

[photos removed]

Total madness. It was like something out of WWI, we would stand on each side of the street taunting each other then a couple guys would blow whistles up and down the line and everyone would scream and charge forward. Of course the other side would be ready, so we would get blasted until someone sounded the whistle in retreat and we would all scream back to our positions minus a few casualties. Im writing Congress when I get home and asking for a Songkram festival in August.