Thursday, August 30, 2007

What a festival

A long time ago a Nepali queen was distraught about the death of her son. Her husband, the King, could not break her from the dispair. He decided to show her that others had suffered in a similar way...he decided that on one day each day there would be a festival where everyone who had a family member who died would walk around the streets carrying sort of like mini floats.

From this begining an enormous festival has evolved which began at 3 AM with men walking through the streets playing music (yup...did not like that part at all). Around 9 am the mini floats began floating around the streets. Most had large groups of family members and friends. Many brought along cows (they are sacred here). As the family walked the streets people gave them little bags of food. A friend of mine said they got 1500 of them

The dancing started around 9 and went until the end...about 5 PM. At night, people can say or do anything against anyone or anything. The Maoist seemed to not like the US and others did not like the Maoist.

Probably the most amazing festival we have seen anywhere










3 comments:

Anonymous said...

yay festivals...but in Nepal there are more festivals than there are days of the year. Alot of times businesses seem to close randomly...but really it just depends which festivals they celebrate. Like our friends in Nepal would say "no problem". We really enjoyed Nepal, and hope to return again one day (with our family).

steve said...

You are right about the festivals. They tell me this one will end in a few days, but another big one comes next month.

Linea said...

The pictures are amazing!