I've been to Thailand for the 'water festival' (Songkran) many times, and also Laos where it's also celebrated (under a different name, Pi Mai Lao). Not sure why you'd give me that advice in July though, I was celebrating it in April. It's nowhere near as fun as it used to be in Thailand, I'm glad I experienced it back when it was all out crazy (can you imagine an entire country turning into an all out water fight? You couldn't walk down the street, even in some random back street, and get more than about 50m with being soaked, it was surreal!), but more recently I've celebrated it with a family I've been adopted into in a more traditional way, honouring the elderly with the water cleansing rituals etc. It's quite a beautiful experience, but the utter unbridled chaos used to be an amazing experience for tourists. Still well worth having the experience in Laos as a tourist if you're not too scared of your paranoia websites telling you to stay home and avoid adventure. Your choice!
Speaking of diseases and paranoia, I backpacked through a region of Laos just very recently while it was having an anthrax outbreak, which I found more amusing than scary. Didn't get anthrax despite eating everything in sight. Having said that, in small towns and rural areas of Laos, most Australians will get violently ill if they eat anything, and they'd generally be too horrified at the food to do so anyway. My friends in Australia find it astonishing that I eat what would be considered 'rotten' food by Australian standards, and even more astonishing that I don't get sick from it. I do this to maintain my ability to eat such things so that I can travel through third world countries and eat without dying. Sometimes I cross paths with other Western foreigners in third world countries and they ask me what's good to eat. I warn them not to eat what I do, they always look at me like I'm insane because I'm a White Australian, so surely they can do what I do. Sometimes they won't listen to my warnings and insist on following me around, which they usually enjoy greatly until the usual realisation of their mistake sets in a few hours later in the form of violent diarrheoa, vomiting, etc. Suffice to say, I'm aware of the dangers of backpacking, I'm familiar with it, this ain't my first rodeo, but I'll feign thanks in response to your feigned concern. Thank you so much! <3
I literally said my primary motivation was not to help people, that was just a side effect (a pleasant one which I don't try to avoid, but certainly not my main motivation).
And... hey, someone who just lost a large amount of money trying to ridicule the guy who was saying "Hey, everyone, you're obviously about to lose money, wake up" because he happened to be there and figured he might as well and found it fascinating that you can literally point out an absolutely obvious case to people who are obviously about to burn themselves and they'll attack you for it and again after they burn themselves, and he literally said exactly that before it happened, knowing it was going to happen, and then you're one of the idiots laughing at him after it happened... is pretty incredibly stupid.
Expand
