I made a dash for Bangkok last night. I was suprised to find that this weekend is the Thai new year, and I was even more suprised today when a middle aged woman and her two children each poured a bucket of water on me. I then had my face smeared with some white, rather nice-smelling paste. I found their behaviour odd to say the least but during my taxi ride through the city I realized that pouring water on each other is somehow the way they celebrate this day here. The streets are lined with Thais, armed with buckets, waterhoses and some really heavy duty water pistols. Very few people were dry, and after a while I noticed the dry people tended to be unshapely american tourists who obviously were too uncool to be included in the festivities.
I also learned that saying "No!" or "Please, stop!" does not in any way help you stay dry. I wonder whether it would if spoken in Thai?
As usual, I've messed something up... I forgot the charger to my camera, so I can't take any pictures of the insanity going on out in the streets. Not that readers of my blog expect pictures...
Oh, and since I travelled through Macau, I had enough travelling time yesterday to cross the ultimate goalpost: 800 chinese words. I'm intermediate, baby! By the way, I believe intermediary level in chinese is Zhongji.
