Deepavali

Our arrival has been surprisingly well timed. The weather is great and the festival Tihar has just started, today is the third day called Deepvali (the festival of lights"). So today was all about walking around taking everything in, seeing what the locals get up to. It was mega. So much going on, so much colour. There are orange marigolds everywhere, all made into garlands (you can see the girl above making one) and hanging from shop fronts and draped around the local dogs. We bought a garland and put it on a cow, but another cow came along and ate it in about 5 seconds flat like a string of spaghetti!

People were all dressed up and loads of people were buying sweets made from milk. When we saw a reasonably clean looking establishment we dived in and got us some Deepavali sweet action. Yum.

We were treated to a splash of tikka on our foreheads from our hotel and we sat down to have a cup of tea. They are very lovely people. We then went out at night to see the lights. It was great, very atmospheric and felt like a real communal celebration. Every shop made small picture on the floor outside their shops from coloured powder and then made a line from there into the shops with small candles, trying to entice Lakshmi in to bring them wealth.

We spent a while in the main square taking it all in, it was amazing really. Very lively, yet relaxed and always friendly :-)

PS We had momos for lunch and dinner!