After a fairly lazy day, relaxing after the “hard” day’s ride yesterday, late in the afternoon I decided it was time to go for a walk. By chance, there happened to be a two day festival at the Hadimba Temple. Having watched from my balcony a procession of drummers and followers work their way up the hill on the other side of the river towards the temple, I decided it was time to go and check it out.
The stairs approaching the temple were packed with people entering and exiting the festival. The first thing that struck my eyes as I neared the temple I had visited last week was all of the Styrofoam dish plates strewn about on the forest floor and on the stone terrace surrounding the small building. How sad, a place of worship where they are celebrating and yet they can’t figure out some kind of basic garbage collection. Maybe some day...
Some of the refuse:
More garbage:
People, people everywhere...wow! After the temple there was the clearing area where I had previously seen vendors and some simple kids’ rides. Now there were some musicians sitting down in the center of the courtyard with dancers forming a semi circle around them. On either side were bleachers with a few hundred people taking in the spectacle. I only watched for a few minutes and in that short a time I sadly could see that the dancers were pretty sad. Many were watching their neighbour for clues as to what dance move came next.
Kids' rides near the temple:
The crowd:
The bad dancers:
The band:
Moving on, I slithered my way through the congested crowd passing many vendors and carnival style games, like the classic: “Knock Down the Tin Cans” and “Ring Toss”. I made my way out to a couple of big rides that they had brought in. One was a small Ferris wheel while the other was one of those big “boats” that pendulums from side to side. Both were operated by noisy diesel engines that were belching out black smoke. I have to admit that I thought the rides looked pretty pathetic but those on them seemed to be having a good time.
The classic "Hit the Can" game:
Snacks for sale...I didn't bother...
Anything and everything for sale:
The "big kids" rides:
The Pirate Boat Ride:
Half an hour or so after arriving I’d had enough. On leaving the park I was greeted by a small parade of drummers coming in the opposite direction. In front of them were four men carrying these massive four foot long brass horns. They would stop every once in a while, turn towards the drummers and bellow out a sound that was tantamount to a herd of elephants trumpeting. The drummers would respond with some pounding and then they would all continue their procession. I was glad with my timing on leaving as this was the highlight for me.
The shrine in the parade:
The parade arriving as I left:
You definitely haven’t “done” India until you’ve been to some sort of festival. Thankfully in this country, where there seems to be a festival almost every week...that’s an easy thing to check off of your list.
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