Ropain: The rice planting festival 2015

Pic courtesy - https://www.facebook.com/jaysan.photography

Carrying on with the tradition of celebrating ROPAIN as in yesteryears, socialtours organized a group of expatriates and tourist to travel to the southern ridge of the Kathmandu Valley to indulge in one of Nepal’s most colorful and exuberant festivals. After the earthquake of April 25th this was one of the major events to take place.

On 27th June, 2015, the journey towards the paddy fields began at 8 am and we reached the Bajrabarahi temple after an hour of driving through earthquake damaged village houses and well manicured terraced fields. A brief stop at the temple and the team was on its way to the fields. After a quick change of clothes the planting began in earnest. Fifteen minutes of rice planting then gave way to over three hours of fun and frolic in the mud. Mud wrestling, tug of war and mud racing then over took rice planting.

In between local rice beer, rice wine, Newar style sautéed buffalo meat and spicy potato was served. This served as an energizer for the mayhem in the mud to continue for another two hours. After another hour in the fields mingling with the local farming community and giving continuity to on the spot invented games, it was time to relish a typical village Newar lunch. After shower and change of clothes under the open sky an eight course Newar lunch was laid out. Food was as varied as from beaten rice, chicken, bamboo shoot to your regular potato curry. 3 pm and we were pulling our tired bodies into the bus for the ride back home.

This year the crowd was smaller than in previous years due to the earthquake, but let me assure the fun wasn’t. It was an occasion that everyone relished and spoke highly of. It was also a measure of how far we had come after the earthquake in terms of getting our lives back to normal. socialtours has come back stronger and better after April 25th and we promise you a bigger and more eventful ROPAIN 2016.

All photos sourced from https://www.facebook.com/jaysan.photography

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