Nov 8, 2014 Bumthang Valley

This morning was a stop at the Jambay Lhakhang Drup festival.  

It was a very colorful and crowded festival with lots of locals and tourists. 

Many were taking pictures,  

including a monk with an iPad.

  

Women sang cultural songs and danced fairly sedate dances. 

 



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Beautiful Fabrics in the Kira Skirts

Several were also blessed during a fertility ritual.

Women without children being blessed in a fertility ritual.



The men wore colorful masks and costumes.

There were energetic dances with more masks and beautiful, colorful costumes and fascinating headgear. 

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The dances were accompanied by cymbals and other instruments.

This gentleman was looking for donations for the festival.  Very persistent.

Tara managed to get acquainted with the governor of the province and the chief of police. 

After lunch we headed out 

 went to visit the Kurjey Temple.  

White stone stairs...see if you can find them.

We hung around the hotel in the afternoon while some of the others headed into town (with an ulterior motive).  Today was Paul's birthday.  They had a birthday celebration planned.  Including a big birthday cake.  The cake was shared with all of the groups staying at the hotel.

Happy Birthday to Paul

Then, just before midnight, we headed back to the festival to see the “Naked Man Dance”.  The tale is that a guru/master tried to build a temple but every night the demon came and destroyed his day’s work.  After several days of this he decided that he needed to distract the demon by dancing naked at midnight while the angels build the temple.  At the end of the night the temple was finished and the demon could not tear it down.  So during this festival they celebrate this event with the naked man dance.  It turned out that there were about a dozen naked men clad only in masks.  They milled around a bonfire in the middle of the plaza to stay warm.  A couple of men would occasionally peel off from the group and dance around the perimeter of the circle.  There were no demons and no angels - perhaps there was during the second set, but we left after the first set…very cold and not really dancing beyond the bump and grind type.