Experimental Travel Part 3

So to round off my 'Experimental Travel' posts - here are a few more weird and wonderful festivals around the world! 

Russia 

White Nights FestivalThe White Nights festival is an arts held annually in St Petersburg during the arctic season when the sun can still be seen at midnight. The festival includes a series of classical ballet, opera and music events with performances by Russian and international dancers, singers, musicians and actors. The Scarlet Sails show is famous for spectacular firework displays celebration is the culmination of the White Nights season and the largest public event anywhere in Russia with the annual estimated attendance
about one million people! The White Nights festival aims to promote cultural exchange between Russia and the rest of the world and strengthen St Petersburg's reputation as a world centre for culture and the arts.

USA

Burning Man - Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

The Burning Man Festival is an annual event held at the end of August where up to 48,000 people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock desert to create art and express their individuality. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, which is set alight on Saturday evening. The Burning Man website lists the following ten principles:

• Radical inclusion
• Gifting
• Decommodification
• Radical self reliance
• Radical self expression
• Communal effort
• Civil responsibility
• Leaving no trace
• Participation
• Immediacy

The event is described as an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance. Festival goers often say that you cannot truly understand Burning Man without attending - however be warned this festival is not for the faint hearted!

Scotland

Up Helly AA

Occuring once a year in the Shetland Islands, this fire festival marks the end of the yule season. Costumed participants march through the streets carrying torches,followed by hours of performing acts and dancing in halls throughout Lerwick. The procession culminates in the torches being thrown into a life size replica of a Viking longship or galley.

U.K

Cheese Rolling

The final festival on my list is in my hometown of Gloucestershire! However although it is so close to where I live I have never actually been to watch the bizarre spectacle of cheese rolling....

The cheese rolling race/event takes place annually on the Spring bank Holiday on the incredibly steep Coopers hill in Gloucester. Traditionally it was done by only locals but over the years it has become world famous and now attracts participants from as far as Japan and America.

So what is cheese rolling? Well from the top of the hill a 9 lb round of Double Gloucester cheese is rolled, and competitors start racing down the hill after it aiming to catch it. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese!

There have been many many injuries from the event and every year the ambulances will be stationed nearby ready to treat those who hurt themselves! Due to strict health and safety rules, as well as the difficulty of trying to control the large number of people who come to watch the event is no longer officially managed by an organisation and authorities will try to discourage people taking part or going to watch. However this has had very little effect and hundreds of people will still assemble to hold spontaneous races, risking life and limb to catch the cheese!

So that concludes my posts on alternative festivals around the world - the few I have featured are just a snippet of the many that are out there though and you really could spend a lifetime visiting them all!

As for experimental travelling - perhaps I will use my book and decide to take on some of the challenges when I next go on an adventure!

Check out my previous posts on experimental travel and weird festivals below:

Experimental Travel Part 1

Part 2

Blood Moon

Did you see the blood moon last night? Ralph and I watched it from my garden at 3am. Living in a city I wasn't expecting there to be much to see due to light pollution but the sky was so clear and I could see all the stars and constellations as well as a beautiful rust coloured moon. So magical!

Experimental Travel - Part 2

Following on from my previous post on experimental travel and after a conversation with friends, I have come up with my own experimental travel adventure that I would love to do! This one isn't really something that could be done in a weekend or a few months though as it would be pretty costly and would probably take a lifetime to complete!

It all began with a discussion about La Tomatina Festival in Spain - which in case you didn't know about it is a huge tomato fight in the streets of Bunol in Spain which is held in late August everyday. My friends and I all agreed that we would love to attend and then got to thinking about how great it would be to attend all the weird and wonderful festivals across the globe... 

Well once I began my research I discovered there were so many that it would be impossible to list them all! But here are a few that look especially fantastic....

India

Holi Festival - Also known as the festival of colours or the festival of love, Holi is an ancient Hindu festival which is primarily observed in India. It is celebrated in spring at the approach of the vernal equinox on a full moon. The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair broken relationships, and is also celebrated as a thanksgiving for a good harvest.

Whilst you are in India why not visit this festival too:

Jaipur Elephant Festival: The Elephant Festival is an annual event held every year at Jaipur the capital city of Rajasthan. It is organised according to the Indian calendar on the full moon day of Phalgun Purnima (February/March), this coincides with day of Holika Dahan, just a day before Dulendhi, which the Indian festival of colour and joy Holi is celebrated! As the name suggests elephants are the centre of attraction at the Elephant Festival Jaipur. Pachyderms are washed, painted and groomed in all finery by their loving grooms or Mahouts as they are called in India. Elephants are specially decorated for the elephant festival, with chunky elephant jewellery, large anklets decked with bells grace their feet, their bodies are painted with traditional Indian motifs, gold embroidered velvet rugs grace their backs along with silver and gold plated Howdahs and gold embroidered velvet parasol’s.

Thailand


Thailand has become very popular as a gap year destination and is well known for its infamous full moon festival! However if you are looking for something a bit alternative how about this:

The Monkey Buffet Festival is a really a unique and bizarre Festival held in in the province of Lopburi, North of Bangkok. During the festival 4000 kilograms of fruits, vegetables, cakes, candies is set down in front of temples on tables, in pyramid or just on a simple mat for the delight of the 3000 monkeys living in the area.
The Monkey Buffet Festival also host plenty of activities in relation with monkeys: music and dances with young people dress like monkeys and hand made monkey costumes, masks and monkey sculptures are all created for the occasion.
The Festival was invented in 1989 by a local business man in order to boost the tourism in the Lopburi province. Since thousand of visitors come every year to see the numerous monkeys filling their stomachs!

Japan:

Home of the quirky and mad, Japan has plenty of festivals to choose from! Here are two I like the look of:

Konaki Sumo: Konaki (crying) Sumo or Nakizumo (sumo of tears) is more than 400 years old tradition organized in some Japanese temples. Konaki Sumo takes place every April in the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo and includes almost 100 babies.Two Sumo wrestlers, both holding a baby, face each other and wait whose baby is going to cry first.There is also a priest who shouts and waves at the babies. If both babies start crying at the same time the winner is the one who cries louder.If all this sounds a bit mean, it should be noted that the festival is also time of praying for baby's health. There is a Japanese proverb stating that "naku ko wa sodatsu" or "crying babies grow fast". It is believed that louder the baby cries the more gods' blessing she or he get!

The Fuji Shibazakura festival is a festival of flowers which gives colour to the Mt Fuji. Around 800,000 shibazakura (moss flox) bloom in beautiful shades of pink at the bottom of the mountain in late springtime every year near the scenic Fuji Five Lakes area, and sees more than 9 million visitors pass through annually.The festival takes place from mid-April through June, but the best time to see the five different kinds of Pink Moss flowers, usually takes place in early to mid-May.

Since I found so many weird and wonderful festivals I am going to split this into a few seperate blog posts - so stay tuned for my next one which features festivals around Russia, America, Europe and some a bit closer to home!