NEPAL
Opening
Hours & Festivals
Shops in Nepal keep long hours, and in tourist areas usually stay
open seven days a week. But when dealing with officialdom remember
that Saturday, not Sunday, is the day of rest - and bureaucrats
like to knock off early on Friday, too.
In theory, government offices and post offices are open Sun-Thurs
10am-5pm, Fri 10am-3pm; in winter (mid-Nov to mid-Feb), the Sun-Thurs
closing time is 4pm. These schedules often get truncated at either
end, though. Most museums keep roughly the same hours, except
some close on Tuesdays instead of Saturdays.
Moneychangers and some banks in tourist areas are generous with
their hours, but elsewhere you'll have to do your transactions
between 10am and 2pm Sun-Thurs, 10am-noon on Fri. Travel agents
tend to work a five-day week, 9 or 10am to 6pm, Mon-Fri; airline
offices are the same but they take a lunch break at 1-2pm. Embassy
and consulate hours are all over the place.
Stumbling onto a local festival may prove to be the highlight
of your travels in Nepal (and given the sheer number of them,
you'd be unlucky not to). Though most are religious in nature,
merrymaking, not solemnity, is the order of the day, and onlookers
are always welcome. However, some celebrations, while public,
are also personal: don't photograph worshippers without asking
permission.
Music and dance are also integral parts of the culture - so much
so that they can only be briefly introduced here
Festivals and other rites
Festivals are a sophisticated brand of performance art in Nepal,
as exotic as the religions that underlie them, which may be Hindu,
Buddhist, animist or a hybrid of all three. Hindu events can take
the form of huge pilgrimages and fairs ( mela), or more introspective
gatherings such as ritual bathings at sacred confluences ( tribeni)
or special acts of worship ( puja) at temples. Many involve animal
sacrifices and jolly family feasts afterwards, with priests and
musicians usually on hand. Parades and processions ( jaatra) are
common, especially in the Kathmandu Valley, where idols are periodically
ferried around on great, swaying chariots. Buddhist festivals
are no less colourful, typically bringing together maroon-robed
clergy and lay pilgrims to walk and prostrate themselves around
stupas (dome-shaped monuments, usually repainted specially for
the occasion).
Knowing when and where festivals are to be held will not only
enliven your time in Nepal, it will also help you avoid certain
annoyances such as closed offices and booked-up buses. Unfortunately,
festival dates vary from year to year, as most are governed by
the lunar calendar , and determining them more than a year in
advance is a highly complicated business best left to astrologers.
Each lunar cycle is divided into "bright" (waning) and
"dark" (waxing) halves, which are in turn divided into
fourteen lunar "days". Each of these days has a name
- purnima is the full moon, astami the eighth day, aunsi the new
moon, and so on. Thus lunar festivals are always observed on a
given day of either the bright or dark half of a given Nepali
month. Confused? The easiest strategy is just to consult a tourist
office when you arrive. There are also Nepali festival calendars
on the Web , though they're not very comprehensive - try Friends
in High Places (www.fihp.com/festivals.html) or the Nepal Home
Page (www.info-nepal.com/ homepage).
Similarly jubilant (and public), Nepali weddings are always scheduled
on astrologically auspicious days, which fall in the greatest
numbers during the months of Faagun, Magh, Chaitra, Baisaakh and
Mangsir. The approach of a wedding party is often heralded by
the sound of a hired brass band - one of colonialism's stranger
legacies, sounding like a Dixieland sextet playing in a pentatonic
scale - and open-air feasts go on until the early hours. The bride
usually wears red - an auspicious colour - and for the rest of
her married life she will colour the parting of her hair with
red sindur.
Funeral processions are understandably sombre and should be left
in peace. The body is normally carried to the cremation site within
hours of death by white-shrouded relatives; white is the colour
of mourning for Hindus, and the eldest son is expected to shave
his head and wear white for a year following the death of a parent.
Many of the hill tribes conduct special shamanic rites to guide
the deceased's soul to the land of the dead.
Music and dance
Music is as common as conversation in Nepal. In the hills, travelling
minstrels ( gaaine) make their living singing ballads and accompanying
themselves on the sarangi, a hand-carved, four-stringed fiddle.
Teenagers traditionally attract the attention of the opposite
sex by exchanging teasing verses. After-dinner singalongs are
popular, even in Kathmandu, and of course music is indispensable
in all festivals.
Traditional Nepali music often gets drowned out by the rising
tide of Indian film music , with its surging strings and hysterically
shrill vocals, and ghazal , a more langourous, crooning style
of music often performed live in Indian and Nepali restaurants.
Yet Nepali folk music still gets a good airing; in contrast, it
sounds mercifully calm and villagey. A few tourist restaurants
in the budget quarters of Kathmandu and Pokhara host regular free
performances by local folk groups.
Nepali music is almost inseparable from dance , especially at
festivals. Nepali dance is an unaffected folk art - neither wildly
athletic nor subtle, it depicts everyday activities like work
and courtship. Each region and ethnic group has its own distinct
traditions, and during your travels you should get a chance to
join a local hoedown or two, if not a full-blown festival extravaganza.
Look out, too, for the muscular stick dance of the lowland Tharus,
performed regularly at lodges outside Chitwan National Park.
Staged culture shows in Kathmandu and Pokhara are a long way from
the real thing, but they do provide a sampling of folk and religious
dances, and hint at the incredible cultural diversity contained
in such a small country. Most troupes perform such standards as
the dance of the jhankri (shaman-exorcists still consulted by
many, if not most, hill Nepalis); the sleeve-twirling dance of
the Sherpas; the flirting dance of the hill-dwelling Tamangs;
the Tharus' fanciful peacock dance; perhaps a formal priestly
dance, to the accompaniment of a classical raga (musical piece);
and at least one of the dances of the Kathmandu Valley's holiday-loving
Newars.
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