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On holiday in Thailand, my friend and I made the classic traveller’s poorly-thought-out decision to rent a motorbike to tour

the local area for day. After a good two minutes of instruction, we hopped on the bike and wobbled and bunny-hopped down the

track towards the local village. We took our time trying to learn how to manoeuvre the bike, but as complete novices,

it was a pretty dismal effort.

As we motored slowly along, our nerves were rattled by a group of people gathered at the side of the track up ahead

. Not wishing to plunge wheel-first into the group, we swerved haphazardly to the other side, but with some kind of

freaky death wish, the people ran on to the road in front of us. We swerved and braked wildly and all of a sudden we

were drenched. They had thrown buckets of water at us, quickly followed by handfuls of flour that stuck fast to the water.

As we moved past the group, drenched and white, we were bewildered – did they not like tourists? Had they some problem with

our bike riding skills? We weren’t sure what had just happened. Two hundred metres down the road another group loomed.

As we approached, the same sequence occurred – laughing, waving and shouting, they showered us with water and flour.

and a third group followed. By the time we reached town, the streets were covered with people and with water.

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