New Year's Eve Erection

Today is New Year's Eve for Nepalis. In Bhaktapur that means a 9 day long festival which involves hauling ancient portable shrines around the medieval streets and erecting massive trees (lingos = penis = the sign of worship for the God Shiva). Obviously too good to miss we got the bus over there and had a look around. It was a festival atmosphere and there were many people carrying chickens around (soon to be sacrificed and their blood thrown in the name of the Gods). It was great and wee arrived just in time to see them erecting 1 of the 2 lingos (linghams) in Pottery Square.

Pottery square is not big (50m x 40m perhaps) and is surrounded on two sides by three storey buildings and has a small temple in one corner. The square was packed with people and every vantage point was secured, there were faces everywhere, the roofs included. The object of their attention was a massive tree trunk, about 20 meters tall which was being held up on two stands. The people you see in this picture are some of the 50 lads who were pulling on ropes connected to the tree. They did it in time, with constant music being beaten out by a small band, chanting as they pulled. At times they were lifted off their feet by the ropes pulling back at them.

As they pulled other guys pushed the stands closer to the base of the tree. And so the tree slowly moved closer to the vertical. We watched for about half an hour as the process went on, everyone was hot and the music was beating until it all kicked off. We were watching from next to the guys in the picture above, so the tree was being pulled towards us, slowly upwards, until it reached the "tipping point" and to cheers and cries it moved quickly upwards. As we were watching it started falling to one side, our side! And then it came past the vertical and started moving straight down towards us. Young lads on the ropes were being lifted into the air...

I truly thought that is was coming down on our heads. Me and the Mrs dived under the small temple for cover hoping it would shield us from certain death. The crowds were cheering and when I opened my eyes again the tree was standing (more or less) upright. Everyone was happy and cheering at the successful erection and we breathed a sigh of relief.

What fun!