Thingyan Water Festival - Day One

Freeze Mutha Furinah!

It's that time of year again.  If you've followed this blog for the last few years, you may remember previous Thingyan festival. It's the one in April where everyone throws water on each other.

My first Thingyan was just a few weeks after arriving in Myanmar in 2014. I was so new to the place that I didn't really know what to make of it.

The waterproof aspect of my GoPro is ideal
for the water festival.

Last year, I was in Chiang Mai, a big tourist mecca in northern Thailand, and the festivities were just so far over the top, it felt more like an ordeal than a celebration.

I'm looking forward to this one. I haven't got much planned out for what I'm going to be doing, but Thursday is going to be the big day. Today, I was waiting around for some repairmen to do some fixes at the apartment, but they never showed. In the early morning, I went out for some breakfast, and the celebrations handn't really started. Then, in the afternoon, the power went out, and given that it was 104F in Yangon today, I simply couldn't stay in the apartment. So, I hopped on a bus and headed downtown.

Consequently, there are two distinct parts to this first Thingyan video. Back when I did my motorcycle tour vids, you may have noticed I played around a lot with using the fast-speed function of my editing software. With the first half of this video, I explored slow-motion. The second half of the video is much more up tempo as I visited the crazy party zone downtown.

Unlike in Thailand, here in Myanmar, the first day of Thingyan is designated as Children's Day. It's only the kids who are supposed to be throwing the water. I'll let you watch the vid and see how much that tradition is followed.