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| Chauffeured by their parents, kids patrol the streets with buckets and water guns, soaking all in range. |
While our year begins on January 1, in Southeast Asia the year begins on April 13. This is the first day of Songkran, also known as the “Water Festival” and the celebrations last for three days. Songkran celebrates the vernal equinox and is a favorite holiday in Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Laos and Cambodia.
It’s a time for fun, especially if you’re a kid, and in the villages and towns, people in pickup trucks slowly cruise the streets, their truck beds loaded with kids equipped with buckets of water and “Super Soaker” water guns. Water is constantly flying and everyone is wet, but nobody minds, since this is the hottest time of the year. In one city I watched the local kids and police fighting it out with squirt guns.
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| Soaking wet California Native founder, Lee Klein, pedals his rickshaw back into the melee of Songkran’s Water Festival. |
During the time of Songkran, many community events and parades are held, both secular and religious, including the Miss Songkran beauty pageant. It also is a traditional time for family gatherings.
As a tourist, it is a wet but great time to visit.
silver anniversary comes as a proud moment for our company’s founder, Lee Klein, who continues to scout new locations world-wide in search of new destinations for the active traveler. Klein, a graduate from Loyola Marymount University with a MBA in Management spent more than two decades as a corporate manager and college professor until, while climbing Ayer’s Rock in the Australian Outback, he decided to venture into the adventure travel business. As he did, he took to heart the lessons he taught his students on how to succeed in business: “keep it simple, and learn to do it right before adding new products and services.”