The Thunder Dragon in Fall in and around Thimphu

The Blessed Rainy Day, (which fell on September 23rd this year), officially marks the end of the monsoon and the onset of the Fall and harvest seasons in Bhutan. In reality though, it may continue to rain torrents till well after this date, as it has done in Thimphu. On the other hand, the crispness of Fall set in well before this date! The nighttime temperatures are dipping steadily now and there is early morning frost on the ground some mornings, but the days are as gloriously warm and sunny as promised to us!

The Thimphu Tsechu is a fitting celebration of the start of the season. Colourful and fun, it goes on all day for the entire three day holiday which ran from 3rd to 5th October this year. Deep, bass horns begin to sound from the Dzong early in the morning, continue throughout the day and can be heard far and wide in the town, acting effectively (to my mind) like a call to everyone to join in the festivities! While the official and traditional events which include pantomime, dance and music happen in the grand courtyard of the Dzong, the celebrations spill out onto the streets with people milling around, eating, drinking, shopping and trying their luck at various games stalls. Here are some scenes from the celebrations in the Dzong......
   
A comic, slightly slapstick play/pantomime started just as we entered and continued the whole time we were there.....take a look!

The space behind the yellow curtain acted as a makeshift green room for the pantomime participants....

It was a warm, dry and perfect day prompting the audience to shield themselves from the hot sun in the pic below. The orange clad group of people walking through the stands are the DESUUP, a volunteer group trained in leadership skills, disaster relief, evacuation and emergency services, disaster management, forest fire fighting and dealing with natural calamities.

Tsechu time is dressing up time for everyone including this little girl in her own little kira!

A drive from Thimphu to Paro and back at this time of year and in this part of Western Bhutan sees the Bhutanese preparing for the winter and taking advantage of the drier days and golden sunshine, though as mentioned earlier it continues to rain for a while even after the Blessed Rainy Day. The road is dotted with splashes of red rooftops neatly spread with chillies put out to dry. The drying process, which is the same for sliced apples among other fruits and vegetables, is interesting......the rain comes, wets the produce, the sun comes and dries it out, only for it to get wet again.....the process continues till the rain stops and the sun finally does its job!

The picture below is taken in the bright mid morning sunshine (isn't it just so vibrant!), the one further down is taken in the fading evening light.

Nearing Paro, which is less congested than Thimphu and more agrarian, the season presents itself in all its abundant, golden glory of paddy fields standing ready to be harvested ....... 

No account of the Fall season in and around Thimphu would be complete without pictures of meadow upon meadow of wild cosmos. If other flowers begin to steadily wilt and surrender to the cooler temperatures, surprisingly the dainty and delicate cosmos proves to be a fighter, flourishing as it does all the way into the decidedly colder November nights!   

In keeping with the gentle pace of all things Bhutanese, the Fall colours on the trees take their time appearing, taking a gradually staggered approach as against the almost overnight leaf metamorphosis that results in their riotous and concerted change of garb in some places in the world! Scroll down to see a stunning rainbow of the first yellows of the season........

If the nights get steadily colder after the Tsechu festivities, if feels as if the sun will shower us with its warmth and radiance all through the impending winter .......it is the middle of November now and there are still days when it is too warm to don even a sweater, let alone a jacket. There are still flowers and vegetables and herbs growing in the garden where they are safe from the early morning frost! The skies are blue as ever, and the rain I am told will stay away from now till the end of the winter!