If you don’t want to wait until January to celebrate New Year, pack your bags and go to Bhaktapur in Nepal as this is the time the locals celebrate New Year or Bisket Jatra which translates a ‘snake laughter’.
The celebrations vary in different parts of the city; in Bhaktapur durbar square a huge chariot carrying a statue of the god Bhairava is pulled to the Khanlna Tole.
Tongue Piercing
In Bode there is a tongue piercing ceremony when one resident has his tongue pierced by an iron spike which remains in situ whilst he carries a flaming torch around the town.
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On a more comfortable note, in Lyasinkhel a tall pole called a lyasin is erected with two cloths hanging from it. These represent two snakes that killed every suitor who asked for the hand of a certain princess. Eventually the serpents were destroyed by a prince who, with the aid of the goddess Bhadrakali, killed them as they emerged from the nostrils of the sleeping princess before they were able to take their full grown form. The remains of the reptiles were hung from a pole to show the townsfolk what had killed the previous princess.
