Tibetan new year festival

Tibet Winter tour is specially designed to travel Tibet in winter months like December to February. Due to located in high altitude plateau, travel to Tibet in winter month is cold and road could be blocked by heavy snow. Overland tour to Everest base camp, mount kailash and other trekking in Tibet is not really recommended from December to February. However some part of Tibet is still possible in winter months too.

If you go to Tibet in winter, you will meet the Tibetan New Year, which is the most important festival for Tibetans. Several days before the Tibetan New Year, the Tibetans will start preparation for the festival, painting the walls, cleaning the shrines and utensils, drawing auspicious patterns on the windows, doors and beams. They will present an offering in worship for the Buddha, such as various fried butter fruits, colorfully adorned sheep's head, fruits and snacks, while sheep's head is an indispensable mascot for the Tibetan New Year.

    Every family will taste Gudu after sunset, which is a porridge consisting of 9 kinds of food and in which symbolic significances of pastes are put on the 29th of December in the Tibetan Calendar. While eating, different things might be found that bear different meanings. For example, wool means kindness, salt means laziness, white stone means pureness, charcoal means meanness. If one found a "monster" with a small head and big stomach in the porridge, he will be punished in public.

On the first day of the Tibetan New Year, the housewife will get up very early. After cooking a pot of barley wine for the family, she will sit beside the window awaiting the sunrise. As the first ray of sunshine of the New Year touches the nearby earth, the housewife takes a bucket and heads for a nearby river, or well, to fetch the year's first bucket of water, which is seen as the most sacred, clearest water of the coming year. The family that fetches the first bucket of water from the river/well is believed to be blessed with good luck for the coming year.

The whole family will put on new clothes, worship the gods and bless each other. On that day, people will not go out, instead, they will greet the neighbors holding "zusuoqiema" in their hands, and wish for good fortune, good health and happyness forever.

On the second day of Losar, people visit their friends and relatives. Outdoor activities become the part of entertainment. People escalate the festival celebrations with traditional stage fights between good and bad. A famous dance of Ibex deer and the dramatic battles between the King and his ministers add joy to the festive mood. In the night, people whirl burning torches in their homes to cast away the evil spirits.