Happy New Year- again! In the past four months I have celebrated New Year's according to the Gregorian, aka Western, calendar- January 1, 2013; Lunar, aka Chinese, calendar- February 10, 2013 (or the year 4711); and the Buddhist, aka Thai, calendar- April 13, 2013 (or the year 2556). April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand, so the new year is appropriately celebrated with nation-wide water fights. Anything can be used as a weapon: hoses, balloons, squirt guns, watering cans, and, in some regions, elephants. If it can spray water, its fair game . My day consisted of 12 hours of mayhem, starting from my front door, where the neighborhood kids were tossing buckets of water on any passerby. And motorbikes are fair game, hence, I did not drive anywhere. I managed to make
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