In addition to Kathmandu celebrating Tihar Festival (Diwali to most), Newari New Year was celebrated today by the Newari (or Newa) people. This has been a little confusing and hard to follow which holiday is being celebrated by which group of people, but interesting nonetheless. We were on a mission to get a taxi to a smaller town in the Kathmandu valley, but had a hard time finding one for a decent price, and then had a hard time finding one at all… So we ended up staying in the city and following the Newari parade inadvertently throughout the day. The Newari parade was originally a motorbike rally (An Australian married to a Newari man told me at a coffeeshop). She said that the parade of trucks must be the follow up to the motorbikes. It was mostly a lot of young men drinking rice wine, dancing to drums, and blasting pop music while skeptical Kathmandu locals watched. And by watched, I mean humored. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought a group of youngsters were being a bit cheeky, but the holiday checked out, and let the minority group celebrate.
