What a full on weekend! Saturday was festival time in Banepa with the entire town climbing up to a small temple overlooking the town. The day started with a special bean soup with 9 different types of beans. This festival coincides with the traditional end of the rice planting season so farmers eat the hearty soup to recover strength and renew their vigor. With several of our Nepali friends leading the way we trekked up to the temple, joining the ant like stream of people snaking its way through the forest. Despite the early start we were all covered in sweat, or at least the westerners were! The top of the hill was packed with people enjoying the carnival atmosphere with lots of people selling trinkets and games for the children.
We received tikka and had some thread wrapped round our wrists by a holy man, at another festival, in two months time we wrap the threads around a cows tail apparently.
We didn’t get much time before heading down to Dinesh’s house for a quick feast (with the customary local booze, racksee. And more bean soup) before heading to the Rotary meeting in Dhulikhel.
After the meeting we all headed around to Ashok’s place for another feast, this time to celebrate his wife Karmela’s birthday. After an amazing feast of many local dishes we were treated to an impromptu concert by our friend Suman and Ashhok’s son.
All in all a very special day
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