I'm walking down the sidewalk amid a flurry of "HELLO! HELLO!" from passing traffic, and a lady with chalky paste on her face steps out from the grounds of a temple. She gives me a deep, deep wai, carefully approaches, and dabs fingerfuls of water from a silver bowl all around my shoulders, then pulls me down to plant a kiss on each cheek, smearing me liberally with the paste of eucalyptus-scented baby powder on her face, and then she leans back, takes a handful of screaming orange talcum paste, and very delicately plasters my entire face in one swoop.
One of the biggest lessons of Nepal: Thailand really is a damn happy and easy place. As obnoxious as the, "HEY! YOU! UH!" and "HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER!" can be, they're ejected without malice or spite, sometimes to get a rile from the farang but more frequently to make the cohort chuckle.
In Nepal, Holi was spiked with the thrill of desecration. When I was ejected from the bus in Lumpini, the kid who smeared purple dye on my face was taking a break from the sanctioned evening activity of beating stray dogs with sticks. In Pokhara, throwing dye was a violent activity, expunging the old year's frustrations in a puff of vibrant talcum. Face painting was a half-assaulting slap. All of it was laughed off, but the laugh came only after a pause and mental check to make sure it wasn't a serious assault.
Songkran, on the other hand, was punctuated with nearly as many, "TEACHER! TEACHER!" as "FARANG!" Parents and grandparents were visibly shocked when their little ones squirted or splashed the teacher, and while the lady who kissed my cheeks was one of only three, even the staggering-drunk hoodlums who came up to paint my face did so delicately, and every one of those offered me the drink in his other hand. And there was never the spite, never the anger, never the malice, just the fun of a water fight big enough to close the main street all the way through town.
One of the biggest lessons of Nepal: Thailand really is a damn happy and easy place. As obnoxious as the, "HEY! YOU! UH!" and "HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER!" can be, they're ejected without malice or spite, sometimes to get a rile from the farang but more frequently to make the cohort chuckle.
In Nepal, Holi was spiked with the thrill of desecration. When I was ejected from the bus in Lumpini, the kid who smeared purple dye on my face was taking a break from the sanctioned evening activity of beating stray dogs with sticks. In Pokhara, throwing dye was a violent activity, expunging the old year's frustrations in a puff of vibrant talcum. Face painting was a half-assaulting slap. All of it was laughed off, but the laugh came only after a pause and mental check to make sure it wasn't a serious assault. 
Songkran, on the other hand, was punctuated with nearly as many, "TEACHER! TEACHER!" as "FARANG!" Parents and grandparents were visibly shocked when their little ones squirted or splashed the teacher, and while the lady who kissed my cheeks was one of only three, even the staggering-drunk hoodlums who came up to paint my face did so delicately, and every one of those offered me the drink in his other hand. And there was never the spite, never the anger, never the malice, just the fun of a water fight big enough to close the main street all the way through town. 
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