18 December 2021
I was hearing lots of motorbike noises and honking of horns, when I received a message on WhatsApp from one of the teachers at my school, telling me that there is a Santa Claus parade outside. So I hopped out onto the balcony (I can see just a peek of the main street), and sure enough, there were hundreds of motorcycles and scooters all being ridden by folks dressed up as Santa!
Apparently this has been going on for the past 8 years or so, and has grown quite huge, as I watched from my balcony for about 20 minutes and when there was no sign of it ending, I went downstairs and walked down to the main street. This has to be seen to be believed, so here is a video recording.
The sidewalks were full of people, and the motorbikes just kept on coming! Some of them were throwing sweets to the children as if it were Mardi Gras. You can see the children picking up the candy in the first few seconds of the video.
At the end of the video you can see that they still had to stop for the traffic signals, so the parade was going by in spurts. Noisy, but all very orderly. I was stunned at how many there were, I think it must have taken about half an hour for the whole motorcade to pass by this block.
This was definitely an unforgettable experience I wouldn't have had anywhere else!
