A surprise addition to our itinerary was a special bonfire and performance at our hotel resort by a Paro company, of some traditional regional folk dances, and some of the tsechu dances performed by monks in the annual religious festivals in honour of Guru Rinpoche.
A punch (with rum) and roasted peanuts and papadams to begin....
Beautiful regional costumes...
some dances are accompanied by songs
the traditional instruments
The masked characters of the tsechu dances...
and the atrasa (clowns) who mimic the dancers and perform comic routines wearing long red noses...
The next day we attended the Thimpu Tsechu - along with thousands of others. People were pouring in and out all the time. The Bhutanese believe they will create merit by attending the festivals and watching the performance of the ritual dances which go on over 3 days.
People conming and going ...
inside the dzong courtyard
The people dress in their finest, and the parade of colourful kiras (the woman's dress) and the gho (man's traditional dress), many of which looked new for the occasion, was as spectacular, to us, as the dances
A clown in the crowd asking for donations and threatening to shoot non-givers with his bow and arrow
the red faced atsara
and outside, sitting having lunch
We attended on the second day. It was very crowded and very hot. We overlooked the dzong and courtyard in our travels the next day and noticed it wasn't so crowded then - might have been a better day to visit, but then I (and Tessa, another fronm our group) wouldn't have been interviewed by national television for a documentary on tourism!.
Many of the flowers we saw were the same as at home. Here are a couple of zinnias in the gardens...
though I have not seen centres quite like this last one.
People conming and going ...
Many of the flowers we saw were the same as at home. Here are a couple of zinnias in the gardens...
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