10 World's Craziest Festivals

Here we collect ten World's wackiest festivals details. Hope you like it and enjoy!

1. Tomatoes, potatoes, radishes and cheese - it may sound like the fixings for some exotic foreign dish, but each is actually the main ingredient for some of the weirdest and wackiest festivals (not to mention tourist attractions) in the world.


2. Potatoes, not tomatoes, rule in another food-related festival held in August. About 15,000 gather in a small Minnesota town each year for Barnesville Potato Days, a weekend fest which includes such spud-centric fun as potato-peeling and potato-picking contests, potato sculpturing, potato sack races and a massive human 'mash' pit (above).


3. Orange you glad he wore a helmet? A participant gets a face full of instant o.j. at the annual Battle of Oranges in Ivrea, Italy. Several teams in elaborate costumes compete by flinging oranges at each other, a custom said to have originated in 1266 when p.o.-ed peasants dissed a tyrannical feudal lord and his men by winging oranges at them.


4. It's all downhill from here at the Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake, a Gloucestershire, England, festival where participants risk life and limb to follow a wheel of cheese down a steep and bumpy hill. The rolling cheese can reach speeds up to 70 mph, and injuries are common in this event said to date from Roman times. But it's worth it considering the first prize - the winner gets to keep the cheese, if not his dignity.


5. Chasing cheese has spread to other shores - Canada now has its own version, albeit a little safer. Men in helmets (above) run after an elusive, 11-lb. wheel of c


6. Belly-floppin' into mud pits is just some of the down n' dirty fun at the annual Summer Redneck games, held in East Dublin, Ga., as a way of celebrating, well, being a redneck. Other contests and events include bobbing for pigs' feet, throwing 'horseshoes' (toilet seat covers) and spitting watermelon seeds.


7. The Mid-Atlantic Hermit Crab Challenge in Virginia Beach, Va., is tailor-made for crabby people - owners of hermit crabs who enter their beloved pets in such competitions as 'beauty' contests and the Crustacean 500 (above), where hundreds of crabs race each other - very, very slowly - along an eight-foot track.


8. This annual Thai fest is more fun than a barrel of you-know-whats. At least it is for the thousands of monkeys who live in the Lopburi province near Bangkok and are offered a lavish feast of food, fruit and vegetables - washed down with soda pop - by local residents during the Monkey Festival in November. Feeding the critters is said to bring good luck - not to mention a heavy influx of curiosity-seeking tourists.


9. No, Night of the Radishes is not a B-movie horror flick - it's an annual event held on Dec. 23 in Oaxaca, Mexico, that attracts thousands of revelers and dates from 1897. Known in Spanish as Noche de Rabanos, it's when the main plaza in town is turned over to clever sculptures made from huge radishes specially grown for the festival.


10. Spain has festivals centered on running with bulls and the tossing of tomatoes, so is it really a surprise that a festival in Castrillo de Murcia features... jumping over babies? During 'El Salto del Colacho' (Jump of the Devil) men in devil costumes take a flying leap over a mattress full of infants. The tradition dates from the 1620s and is meant to bless the babies. Providing the leapers don't misjudge their trajectories.

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Strange Festivals and Crazy Celebrations

Almost as good as "The Festival of the Freshwater Squid" (see here)

As one travels the globe and observes the variety of fairs, festivals, and frivolities, it becomes clear that: 1) the concepts of "weird, strange, bizarre" are really in the eyes of the beholder - and 2) that all humans, no matter where we live, are more than just a bit bonkers.


Making a big deal out of "throwing things"

Although human behavior doesn't vary much, the methods of public celebrations certainly do.

For some baffling reason, for instance, people like to throw things. And depending on the country, what they throw is likely to be different. In Binche, a small town in Belgium, the projectile of choice is a fruit. On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday Binche the town is visited by masked figures called Gilles who – later on in the festivities – carry large baskets of oranges through the town. Many of these oranges are calmly, orderly, handed to residents as well as tourists. Others, though, are rather vigorously … well, thrown at wary residents and unfortunate tourists.
Another "Battle of the Oranges", in Ivrea, Italy:
Meanwhile, if you happen to be in Buñol, Spain, on the last Wednesday in August, you also might want to duck as the fruit thrown there – while not as hard or potentially damaging as an orange – can still sting a bit. What's fun about La Tomatina at Buñol isn't just the hurled tomatoes but that the town, which normally has a population around 10,000, swells to closer to 60,000 as folks from all over come to throw -- and get thrown at.




Other Splendid Festivities

Fortunately, not all festivals in the world include hurled objects. Some just have unique themes. Japan's Hōnen Matsuri is a fertility festival, uniquely celebrated in the city of Komaki. By unique we mean prodigious, tumescent, large, and … okay, enough with the jokes, especially since the object of the fertility being celebrated is that certain part of the male anatomy. A similar festival is also held in Kawasaki, called Kanamara Matsuri. See images here - warning, nsfw.

While nothing is thrown, and nothing terribly phallic is evident, there's a festival that absolutely has to be mentioned: an event featuring tremendous beauty that ends with ashes and smoke.

Around the middle of March, the city of Valencia, Spain, has a festival called Falles – a celebration of Saint Joseph. But long before the Falles, Valencia, the third largest city in Spain, begins to prepare: neighborhoods and a wide variety of organizations form groups called Casal Fallers who raise money for their own contributions to the festivities.

It's these contributions that make the event so incredible. Each group – working from a common theme selected for that year – creates a ninot, or puppet. Fashioned from paper, wax, Styrofoam, and a few other materials, ninots are whimsical, outrageous, profane, comical, political, and every one is incredibly beautiful.
The artisans of Valencia have had a very long time to perfect their craft, and it shows in each and every ninot (see a whole bunch here). Each figure and tableau is a hallucinatory mixture of a Renaissance masterpiece and a three-dimensional cartoon. Each one, too, is frequently a wildly executed satirical jab at everything from politics to tradition, from pop culture to the Falles celebrants themselves. Nothing is sacred, nothing is spared.


If you happen to be in Taihape, New Zealand, things will be flying through the air but none of them – at least as far as we know – have been thrown at anyone. Nevertheless, a festival where people try to throw a gumboot as far as possible could pose some risks to passersby and participants alike.
A landscape nearby is seemingly made to be explored in these gumboots (provided you can catch some free ones):
"Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" are words you might want to keep an ear open for if you're in Japan during Setsubun, and happen to see a member of your household holding a handful of roasted soybeans. Mamemaki is the term for it, and "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" ("Demons out! Luck in!") is what is traditionally said before the beans are thrown out the front door – or at another member of the family (maybe even at the house cat):

If you happen to be in India during Holi, the festival of color, you also might want to avoid wearing your best suit of clothes. As part of the celebration, a brightly dyed powder called abir is merrily thrown everywhere – and especially at each other.


Then come the fires, and then the ashes. Yes, you guessed correctly: each and every minot, every figure and tableau is lit – exploding into the night sky in a roaring conclusion called La Cremà. In the morning there is nothing but ashes, and the memory of the wonders of the falles.

Boryeong Mud Festival, South Korea:


One of the weirdest festivals of all time - El Colacho in Spain. On this occasion grown men are jumping over the new born babies. Yes, very carefully (mothers do not seem to protest). They do it to get rid of any unknown evil spirits that might hide in these babies:
Cheese Rolling, Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire, England:
Chocolate Festival in Kiev, Ukraine (with a huge chocolate fountain on the left):
Prayer for rain during Varuna Yajna ritual, at Sankara Mattham, India:
Lorraine Mondial Air Balloons Festival in Chambley, France:
Gothic and Steampunk Festival in Leipzig, Germany (Wave-Gotik-Treffen, WGT):


A neat little dance at the Kasedori Festival (a fire-prevention festival) at Kaminoyama, Japan:

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Crazy and Strange Nigerian Fishing Festival

The town of Argungu in Nigeria’s northwestern Kebbi province would be just another sleepy fishing village if it weren’t for one spectacular annual event – the Argungu International Fishing Festival or AIFF. Here, men can be real men by pulling the biggest fish out of the river with their bare hands, proving to the watching ladies that they, in fact, are the best catch.

A river full of men:


The four-day cultural festival traditionally starts on a Wednesday in February or March and ends on a Saturday with the big fishing competition. The event has become so famous that visitors arrive up to a month in advance to soak up all the pre-festival excitement.

The festival draws tens of thousands of onlookers:
The proceedings on the big day are simple: Thousands of fishermen, armed only with hand nets and hollowed gourds, have 45 minutes to pull the biggest fish out of a one-mile stretch of the river Matan Fada. The winner can not only be sure of his fellow competitors’ envy but also grand prizes like a car and travel packages.
So sought-after is this honour that some want to win by any means: The 2008 winner had to be stripped of his title and was thrown in jail after some competitors proved that he cheated by presenting a fish that had previously been caught in a much bigger river, probably the Niger. Investigation of the gills also showed that the fish had long been dead.

Though fishing festivals with a more religious connotation have been celebrated in Nigeria since the 16th century, AIFF’s official start is said to go back to 1934 when Sultan Dan Mu’azu paid a historic visit that marked the end of the centuries-old hostility between the Sokoto Caliphate and the Kebbi Kingdom. The festival also incorporates agricultural exhibitions and marks the end of the growing season and the harvest.

And for those whom the festival is not exciting enough, there are also camel and donkey races, boxing and wrestling, and a goat skinning competition. Off to Argungu!

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