Welcome to Myanmar, home to the craziest and biggest water fight in South-East Asia

It all starts so innocently. During a visit to the pottery village of Yandabo on the banks of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, a little girl shyly asks my fellow passengers from Scenic Aura if she can bless us to celebrate the start of Burmese New Year. Stifling a giggle, she brushes a water-laden thabyay sprig on our heads, clearly relishing our exaggerated squeals as the icy water drips down our necks.

Over the next few days, however, those drips become bucket-loads, and the squeals genuine screams as the craziest and biggest water fight in South-East Asia gathers momentum.

Thingyan, the traditional Buddhist New Year celebration held over four days in the scorching heat of mid-April, is the Burmese equivalent of Thailand's Songkran. While the Thais' exuberant celebration attracts most of the media attention, north of the border in Myanmar the revelry is unprecedented as the usually conservative country lets its hari down in a drenching to beat all drenchings.

Officially, Thingyan is a religious festival, marked by the offering of alms, the wearing of traditional yellow paduak blossoms and water sprinkling to symbolise cleansing and transformation. However, it has also become a great excuse to cool off, with everyone from toddlers to grannies and even maroon-clad monks getting in on the water-fight action.

As the four days of festivities progress, so the dousing escalates from squirts with water pistols, to buckets of water, to garden hoses released with abandonment over pedestrians, motorcyclists and open-backed trucks – jam-packed with drunken youths bumping and grinding to techno music that blasts from tinny stereos.

In larger towns, stages and grandstands line major thoroughfares, set up with fire hoses and sprinkler systems to soak anyone who dares pass. Meanwhile, in the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay, streets are closed to vehicles as massive crowds flock to concerts with performances by major artists, street fairs and wild alcohol-fuelled dance parties continuing into the night.

Traffic jams and utter chaos ensues and there are the inevitable motor accidents, with scooter riders particularly vulnerable to the lethal combination of drinking and a well-aimed bucket of water. In 2018, there were 26 reported deaths (down from 285 in 2017, with the discrepancy likely to be a result of censorship rather than good behaviour) and 600 people were admitted to Mandalay General Hospital mostly due to motorcycle accidents.