Purple Travel
[January 16 2017]
The Thingyan Water Festival to celebrate the new year in Yangon, Myanmar
Thingyan is the Burmese way to ring in the New Year. A country troubled with drought and poisonous water, celebrates by spraying an enormous amount of water each April. Smoking, meat-consuming, and drinking monks are not a rare sight. Who says that buddhists can’t lose control sometimes.
Without knowing it would be this intense I stayed in Yangon where the festival started. I found the most unlikely group of people to have a good time with – engineers from Nigeria. A few beers, roasted crickets, and getting kicked out of the restaurant for causing a riot were documented with my friends in the streets of Yangon. 19th street aka Chinatown is the perfect place to be when the water comes down. This year the festival starts on April 14th, don’t miss it!
Text and photo Stefan Dotter
