A tale of two festivals - or why you should skip leg day, aka the fire festival.

We left the parade and went to check into our hotel, then go straight off to the fire festival.

This is Samurai Cat. He helps people navigate the subway.

Checked in.

 We needed to catch two trains to get to the village. We caught the first one.

Samurai Cat has seen some shit.

 But when we arrived, there was a queue to get on the second train.

It started out on the street

went down the street.

went past a bus stop.

you can just see the station entrance now.

It's getting dark.

Into the station

around the corner

down the corridor

Down some more stairs

across

and around another corner

across the concourse

toward some more stairs

up those

and up some more

and across to the station you want to be at

(the previous station was part of the subway and is run by a
different company to this one)

through the line in that station

the ticket gate is finally in sight

through the gate

then queue on the platform

before standing on the train for half an hour

Hey roped off queueing areas on the side of the platform
used for the return journey. This bodes well.

This was worthwhile. I can almost see the fire.

A nice police lady urges the crowd to remain calm.
This photo taken moments before an angry mob sets fire to her car.

Slightly closer. Definitely fire. Probably.

Even closer.

funneled through the village.

These people had the right idea. They arrived six days ago and
set up camp on the second floor of this restaurant.

I'm having a grand old time.

Well that's the seeing fire portion of the trip over for you. Now we will
funnel you around behind the village and back to the train station.

You thought the queue to get on the train took a long time? Ha!

And this is in the dark, with a few lamps to light your way.
Over rough rocky ground. I hope you enjoy having a twisted ankle,
and then being forced to stand for over an hour.

A bridge. How many have jumped to their death as an end to this suffering?

Not enough.

Out of the muddy fields and back onto actual streets.

and down the street

more street

still more street

will this nightmare never end?

Hey, you can almost see fire in the distance.

Waiting to turn the corner. Of course they let the entire other street empty out first.

towards the station

at the station

hey it's that roped off area from before.

hey it's where we were standing in the photo after I took the "This bodes well" one.

almost there sure.

It's a statue of the god of queueing.

 Not pictured: standing on the train for 30 minutes to get back to the subway station.

Two seats with our names on them.

There was no more comfortable train built than the
Elegant Saloon 8000 Series

Having sat down on the train for 20 minutes was more luxury than
I could take. So while Emma laid on her hotel bed and ate microwaved
food from the 7-11, I queued for half an hour to eat ramen.