Asia Tour - Mandalay - Burma -

HAPPY THINGYAN

Today is the start of the new year festival here in Burma (and most of south east Asia)

I was woken up to booming rave music at around 7am - which I did not expect hahahahaha. They start early here.

I just watched the start of the festivities from the balcony of the hostel, which was quite cool as it gave me a brilliant view of everything going on.

I ended up going down to join the festival around mid day as it was starting to get busy, and one thing I noticed was I was the only white person there. A fact which was made even more plainly clear by the fact everyone was looking at me. It then went from looking at me to the occasional one coming over and in broken english repeating hi hello hi hello and shaking my hand which at first was a little bit strange but after a while it was ok.

I was being targeted by Everyone to be soaked which I didn’t mind as it was 41° outside so the water helped me cool down. I ended up being asked to get in a few photos with people. In a few hours I probably ended up in roughly 50/60 photos.

The festival was amazing, super lively and everyone was so friendly and they where just out to have a good time which was awesome to see and brilliant to be a part of!

Later that night I went to a pub for a few beers and I got talking to the barman there about the festival- he explained to me why I attracted so much attention:

I am white
Blonde
Dark beard

That’s not a combination they see at all, not even on TV. He also explained to me that most people in Burma never get to leave their village except for Thingyan - so to then come across a white westerner with blonde hair and black facial hair it’s an extremely rare occurrence and one which they may never actually genuinely see again.

Anyway, more festival antics tomorrowRead more