The performers prepare for the show. Fontana, a travelling water circus produced by Cirque Du Liban at Festival City in Dubai. (Photo by Chris Whiteoak/The National)
People use large water guns to spray each other as they celebrate the annual Songkran festival in Bangkok, Thailand on April 14, 2025. Thailand celebrated the Thai traditional New Year, called Songkran in Thai and also known as ëthe water festivalí, on 13 April, with festivities going on on throughout the weekend. During Songkran, people celebrate the New Year by splashing water to each other as a sign of washing away sins and bad luck from the previous year. People across Thailand celebrate the New Year with parties and water related activities throughout the weekend. (Photo by Diego Azubel/Matrix Images)
Myanmar revellers take part in celebrations on the fifth and last day marking Thingyan, a water festival which brings in the country's new year, in Yangon on April 16, 2016. The Buddhist festival of water pouring symbolizes spiritual cleansing and begin the new year free from worldly impurities with celebrants devoting the four days of Thingyan in merry making of water dousing until the eve of new year. (Photo by Romeo Gacad/AFP Photo)
A boy swims in Chao Phraya River as he helps to place a Krathong, or a “floating basket”, in the water amid a yearly festival during which rafts of neatly folded banana leaves, decorated with flowers, candles and incense, are offered to thank the water goddess for good luck and for using her water to grow crops and support all life, in Bangkok, Thailand on November 8, 2022. (Photo by Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)