27.05.2007
The Mani Rimdu festival
We actually finished our trek a couple of days early, and serendipitously managed to attend this spectacular Buddhist festival in the town of Thame, a 4 hour walk from Namche Bazaar. All along our trek we asked Sherpas when the festival would be, and we had vague replies such as “I think in eight days time” and “It will end by the full moon”. Our timing was such that we were in Thame on exactly the same day as the most interesting day of the festival - the Day of the Dances.
The festival was held in the courtyard of the local monastery. Every local Sherpa, his baby and his dog seemed to be there. Sherpa families sat crowded along the perimeter of the courtyard. Kids ran amok everywhere. Wrinkled grannies cuddled their fat grandchildren. A few Sherpa men were in their best cowboy outfits.
Two young monks in maroon robes and tall curved yellow hats sat playing these very very long wind/horn instruments that made a very deep low bass sound. Two other monks played a smaller and more plaintive sounding wind instrument, while another played the drum.
There were fifteen different dances, each with its own elaborate costume - often silk brocade and with pictures of menacing skulls, and accompanied by awful masks meant to resemble the demons that Buddhism tamed. There were skeleton costumes and demon costumes, and there were even “comic interludes” where monks dressed up as old men and entertained the crowd with their brand of Sherpa humour, which I must say totally escaped us. It was something you would never expect to see apart from on television - and indeed, a film crew from Germany was there documenting the event.
In between dances we visited the little makeshift tea tents around the monastery and feasted on bowls of steaming thukpa noodles and plates of momos (Tibetan dumplings). V had some of the local homebrew but was disappointed to find that there wasn’t more merry making going on. We found out the next day that the real party started in the evening when the monks evidently all got plastered on chang, a Tibetan version of sake.
