La Tomatia Festival – Spain
La Tomatia is a food festival celebrated on the last Wednesday of August each year in the small town of Burnol, Spain. This festival is basically a big food fight game where thousands of people throw tons of tomatoes at each other. They throw hundred metric tons of tomatoes and after the festival the whole town gets red.
Holi festival of colors
Holi festival of colors, also known as the festival of love, is an ancient Hindu religious festival. However, it’s gaining more and more popularity throughout the world and now a lot of different cities celebrate the festival of colors, including London and Paris.
Songkran Water Festival, Thailand
Songkran Water Festival is the New Year celebration in Thailand. Because of the warm climate in Thailand, New Year happens to be one of the hottest days and people celebrate by throwing water at each other. They are using water guns, water balloons, buckets and whatever they find. Thailand people believe that this will bring the good fortune in the next year. Elephants are also used to splash people on the streets.
Gay Pride Parade in Amsterdam
Amsterdam is a home to the legal marijuana and the most famous Gay parade in the world. Gay Pride Parade is held every year at the center of Amsterdam, during the first week of August. The parade is not only on the street but it continues in the Amsterdam’s canals with colorful (mostly pink) boats.
Burning man, Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA
Burning man is an annual festival during which up 50,000 people gather in Nevada’s desert to burn a giant wooden figure of a man. It began in 1986 and it is held on the last Monday of August and ends on the first Monday of September.
Kanamara Matsuri, Kawasaki, Japan
Kanamara Matsuri is of the weirdest festivals in the world. It’s held every year in the town of Kawasaki, Japan. This festival celebrates the penis. Japanese believe that it brings prosperity for business, easy delivery, marriage and married-couple harmony. According to the legend, there was a young woman with sharp demon teeth into her vagina that scratched her husband’s private parts on their wedding night. Therefore, the young woman asked the local blacksmith for help and he made her an iron phallus to break the demon’s teeth.
Baby Jumping Festival (El Salto del Colacho)
The Baby Jumping is one of the weirdest Spanish annual festivals. The Spanish name is El Salto del Colacho, which means the devils jump and that is a well-deserved name. This festival is considered one as one the most dangerous on Earth. Man dressed up like devils jump over babies that are born within the last 12 months. Now, that is one extreme tradition. However, they do it for a good purpose; people believe that this way they will protect their babies from evil spirits.
The Thaipuism Festival, India
The Thaipuism Festival is typically celebrated in southern India and involves mind-blowing body piercing. People who participate believe that if you suffer a great pain you will be blessed from the gods. Some of the participants try to pull cars with ropes with hooks in their skin.
The Redneck Games, Atlanta, USA
The Redneck Festival was founded in 1996 when the Olympics were held in Atlanta. Some locals were offended by some international media comments that this Olympics were “just bunch of rednecks holding a sports event”. That is why local people decided to show the world what real Redneck Olympics might look like. Some of the disciplines in the Redneck games include toilet seat throwing, hubcap hurling and armpit serenade.
