Happy Songkran

I'm currently in Chiang Mai (in the northwest of Thailand) where we are celebrating the Thai New Year. It is called the Songkran Festival and is basically a HUGE water fight (it lasts about a week)...it is absolute chaos by the moat which surrounds the city - thousands of people just drenching each other all day...what I find the funniest though is the people away from the main thoroughfares just standing and waiting all day for suitable targets to go past (walking or on bikes or in Tuk-Tuks or in taxis or whatever) so that they can throw a bucket of (sometimes ice cold) water over them!

I think it says a lot about the culture here that something like this can happen...I can't really see it working in the UK and not just because of the different weather...it is always done with a smile here and really is all in good fun...I have to say I didn't enjoy it so much when the water was thrown (or fired) by a farang (that's what the Thais call foreigners - specifically westerners)...which brings me onto my next point...

There's something strange that has happened to me while I've been here - I've almost become a racist...I don't like being in the places where all the farangs are, I don't really feel like one of them, and I guess in lots of ways I'm not - and I find myself wishing they would go back to England or wherever they came from!

It's funny, you travel to some exotic place on the other side of the world...you go to a fancy restaurant halfway up a mountain next to a waterfall overlooking an ancient city...you order a typical local dish to more fully engross yourself in the culture...and what do you get? Pork scratchings!