If you are in Bangkok, try to be there at the 13th of April to join the Thai New Year Festival "SONGKRAN". Some pictures of the event 96 you'll find at Carl Soak's wam-page. In the North of Thailand people celebrate quite heavy so even some days before the 13th you might get a fresh shower, especially as a Tourist.

Songkran in Chiang Mai
Songkran, the Thai New Year celebrated from April 13 to April 16, is the most important and the best known of Thailand's festivals. To the Thai people, this festival is one of water throwing and although it has religious significance, it usually turns into great fun. Everyone gets soaking wet.

The whole country celebrates Songkran but the festivities are nowhere as exalted as in Chiang Mai.

In Chiang Mai, there are processions of groups of women and girls, and bands play at many places. A Queen of the Water Festival is chosen amidst much noise, gaiety and lots of water. The Ping River, which runs through the city, is crowded with people wading fully dressed in the water and scooping it up with pans and buckets. The visitor who wants to be in Chiang Mai for the event must plan his/her trip well in advance as hotels are usually fully booked.

In the honor of John the Baptist every June, 24th there is the "St. John the Baptist" Festival. It is another event, quite similar to Sonkran held in Manila and various cities in the Philippines. You'll see water fights, waterparades, boat races etc.

If you prefer beach holiday and enjoy the Festival as well in the Philippines, try Camigun Islands:

The St. John the Baptist festival: Venues of the festival are usually Cabuanan and / or Agohay Beaches. Watersports like boat races and fluvial procession / parade and coronation of Miss Hibok-Hibokan are conducted. Lots of wet fun!

Other wet activities: Katibawasan Falls. Located 5 kms. southeast of Mambajao center. Waterfalls which measures 250 feet high cascades to a rock pool surrounded by ground orchids, wild ferns, trees and boulders. Its cold water provides an ideal summer splash to bathers and picnickers.

Climate: Cool climate is attributed to vegetation and natural springs. Daytime temperature averages at 26.9°C. Coldest months are December, January and February. Maximum rainfall had been recorded on months of June to December. Dry season starts in April and lasts to one or three months.

How to get there: Camiguin is a pear-shape volcanic island lying in the Bohol Sea, some 54 kms. southeast of Chocolate Hills and some 90 kms. north of Cagayan de Oro airport, 120 kms. southeast of Mactan International Airport and 10 kms. north of Misamis. Oriental Philippine Airlines flies daily to Cagayan de Oro City, where there are buses that ply the 90-kilometer Cagayan de Oro, Camiguin route. One can also fly from Cebu City, where there is a connecting flight to Cagayan de Oro City four times weekly.

Berlin - Love Parade
Sometimes it's just being there. In the '60s it was mud and brown clay at Woodstock. In the age of techno, it's the Love Parade - a celebration which attracts more than one million people from around the globe.

The Love Parade is one of the most breathtaking spectacles you could ever wish to be part of. With the shops the length and breadth of the parade closed down for the day, it gives the impression of an anarchic new world. The streets are awash with bodies crammed in front, behind and by the side of floats that have come from all over Germany. Although predominantly techno in the purest sense of the word, the floats cover the entire spectrum of other dance music too.

So the Love Parade is much more than a "techno parade" that brings the shopping centre of Berlin, Ku'damm (the equivalent of UK's capital's Oxfrod Street), to a standstill on the first Saturday afternoon in July. Like Rio's Carnival, the Love Parade has become a part of the city. A cultural event. A phenomenon.

The posse with their multi-couloured hair playing in the fountains and, with their giant hydraulic water pistols, patrolling/herding/play-fighting the masses in the square and squirt and splash water around. The cyberarmy in their combat clothes.

Or see the contribution of the local waterworks. Two pipes, two hydrants one connecting pipe with holes: That's called a raver shower.

If you want to get wet you'll find many possibilities to get your clothes soaked through. Just search for the fountains like the pools at Ernst-Reuter-Platz - a place you have to be that Day!

Munich
Around after high school exams in summer people will join a party named "Kastenlauf". Everybody celebrate very exalted with beer and lots of fun at or in the river Eisbach (runs through the wellknown English Garden). The party is not where all those nudy folks are. It is opposite the "Haus der Kunst" - very easy to find. At last: in the evening people will start to jump into the river.

In a very similar event to Songkran, Panama (also applies to Ecuador) has a "water carnival" too. There are no less than 10 towns that take very active part in the Carnival which is worth seeing. In addition to the Capital City, they have Colon, Chorrera, Capira, Coronado, Parita, Chitre, Santiago, Los Santos and Penonome. But in the interior of the country, the most famous and spectacular are the Las Tablas Carnivals where the beauty and enthusiasm of the women of those parts joins up with the unstoppable rhythm of the dances, songs and lots of water which takes over the streets.

Las Tablas is an issue in itself. Starting with the long-standing tradition of rivalry between two antagonistic groups come festivity time. "Calle Arriba" and "Calle Abajo", which in addition to presenting two different queens, scheme and plan to outdo their rival and win the supremacy of the Carnival festivities.

The carnival in the City of Las Tablas is recognized as the best in the country. It takes place during February, about 40 days before Good Friday (same time as carnival in Rio and Mardi Gras in New Orleans). By tradition the town is divided into two groups called tunas: calle arriba (Up Street) and calle abajo (Down Street), which compete in every aspect of the carnival. Events follow a similar pattern on each of the four days of Carnival.

In the morning, there are water, blue dye and shaving cream fights in the central plaza, and the two tunas parade in street clothes, dancing and singing songs praising their group or ridiculing the other. The morning events are called the culecos. At night people dress in party clothes; the dancing parades include decorated floats. Many water trucks pump thousands of gallons of water onto each float, to beauty queen and the water hoses soaking the 100,000+ people in the crowds. After the parades at night, each tuna goes back to their toldo (their base) and join a large dancing party until early hours of the morning. Next day ... back to the central plaza for more culecos, unless it is Wednesday (Ash Wednesday according to the Catholic Calendar), when people that came to the town for the carnival leave and there does not appear to be a single soul in the central plaza.

To make room reservations for this festival you have to make arrangements sometimes a year in advanced.

Kashima Gatalympic - The mud Olympics
Most years it will be held in May, because of the tides. "Gata" is a Japanese word that refers to the muddy area of land between the low and high water marks on a beach. Combine this with the word "olympic," and you may get an idea of the messy competitions that take place each year in Kashima in Saga Prefecture. The vast tideland in this area is produced due to the fact that the difference between high and low tides is greater on the Ariake Sea than anywhere else in Japan. The games and other events associated with the Gatalympic attract more attention and more participants every year. Be prepared to get messy!

Events such as cycling, swimming, and mud dancing are just a few of the sporting events. About 7,000 students came to Kashima to experience the tidelands for school trips from all over Japan this year. If you are interested in participating, contact the Kashima City Hall.

If sports is not your thing, you should take the chance to just watch the festivities and cheer on the contestants. Have a messy day.

Kashima city is located 80km east of Tokyo, the capital of Japan, and that is located at the southeast-end of Ibaraki prefecture, and the area is about 93 square km. Because Kashima city faces the Pacific Ocean and that is effected by the Japan current, it has the least temperature-difference between summer and winter.

If you want more information, please call as follows:
Telephone: 0081-9546-3-2111 (Kashima City Hall of Saga Prefecture) or Kashima City Tourism and Commerce Division (0081-(0)954-63-2111)

Oozeball - Mud Volleyball
"Oozeball" is the name for volleyball played on a court of mud some eight inches deep. The rules are officially the same as normal volleyball, but in practice the slippery surface underfoot and the ball's permanent thick mud coat make serious competition all but impossible. The teams beat the ball back and forth over the net as best they can, with mud fights between plays.

The playground is prepared: Around the court are boundaries, which hold the mud in place. The boards are filled with a thick layer of fine dirt for the occasion.

More timid participants quickly fall victim to their teammates, who push them over or throw mud at them. Between plays, players lobb mud bombs over the net at their opponents.

Idaho, Idaho Falls and Boise
The 11 th annual Co-Ed Mud Volleyball Tournament of Idaho. Held on july, 18, 1998 in Boise The Foundation's second tournament of the summer is held in Idaho Falls on August 8, 1998 More information, see this page.

Missouri
The annual AASB Oozeball event will be held on Saturday, September 26 th 1998. They will have more information available later in the summer, arround first of August.

Columbus, Ohio
The annual Ohio State University Oozeball Tournament will be held around May.

Colorado, Denver
Annual March of Dimes Mud Volleyball Tournament near Denver Airport. Contact the March of Dimes at 303-692-0011. Fax: 692-9229.

Cleveland, Ohio
The Epilepsy Foundation of north East Ohio is holding their Mud Volleyball Tournament on July, 18 th 1998. Contact Kelly Needham at 216-579-1330.

Memphis, Tennessee
The annual Laffy Taffy Mud Derby. It is not a mud Volleyball event, but teams of 12 run an 8-9 obstacle course in deep mud...a messy event. Contact Suzanne Bouch`e at 901-454-5200 (or -52419)