For fifteen years I’d tried and failed to reach Bhutan as an independent traveller. Requests elicited polite refusals and my longstanding dream of witnessing a four-day Buddhist festival, a ‘Tsechu’, looked like remaining just that, a dream. Then, in 1997 Bhutan started to admit individuals on bespoke schedules providing they pay the same levies asked of group tourists. Attending a Tsechu and spending 10 days in Bhutan was suddenly conceivable, it just meant parting with enough cash to underwrite a frugal lifestyle in neighbouring India for six months. Toying with the idea I’d presented my wife with a picture of a Tsechu’s closing ceremony. Depicting a giant appliquéd banner being lowered from a monastery roof shortly after dawn, it is said that just witnessing this auspicious unveiling of incredible craftsmanship cleanses the viewer of all their worldly sins. Exceeding the desired effect, I was surprised to see tears welling up in my partner’s eyes. Quite simply the image had transported her, made her imagination take flight and touched her soul. The next day I initiated a fax correspondence with one of Bhutan’s numerous travel agencies specialising in the recently introduced concept of ‘independent tours’.

The notion of a Tsechu was hardly new to me. I’d grown up ogling copies of ‘National Geographic’ showing sepia shots of holy men dressed as wrathful deities, charging about in landscapes of drop dead beauty. Buddhist countries and communities have been holding variations on this festival for well over a thousand years. In fact when conjuring up visions of masked dancers and Himalayan peeks it is Tibet and not Bhutan that comes to mind. These days, although one can still attend ceremonies of this nature in the ‘Land of the Snows’, it is under the watchful eye and secular control of the Chinese government. In India travellers can immerse themselves in relatively traditional festivities around Leh and Dharamsala, they just won’t have the spectacle all to themselves. To do that, to get on the hotline to the Middle Ages and turn those evocative sepia prints into 21st century Technicolor, you have to go to Bhutan. Even then it is advisable to plan your trip both out of season and away from the confines of the principal cities, Thimphu & Paro.

Trongsa, situated in the heart of the country, struck me as a perfect location in which to experience a Tsechu. Although it is one of Bhutan’s largest towns, in reality Trongsa is little more than a rambling street, crowned by a colossal monastery, or Dzong, built in the 16th century. Clinging to the mountainside on misty mornings it can appear, like Xanadu, to be floating above the clouds. Although over twenty monasteries throughout Bhutan hold Tsechus at different times of the year, the two day drive from Thimphu combined with the cold December scheduling, means that Trongsa’s Tsechu is virtually unattended by foreigners. Amongst hundreds of locals we encountered only five other Westerners who shared our secret that this was a perfect time to visit Bhutan. There may be frost and snow at first light, but midday temperatures soar to over 20 degrees and vast blue skies engulf the country’s normally cloud kissed panoramic landscapes.

Walking out of our guesthouse on one such crisp morning we are tingling with expectation, the distant percussive accompaniment to a dance, like church bells, luring us towards the Dzong. Only primarily we are not being called to prayer, we were being called to partake in a party. Like the Mystery Plays from our own heritage, Tsechus are much more than dry, pious enactment’s of spiritual texts. They are living, breathing theatre, mass gatherings when the whole community dresses up and comes together in celebration of life and contemplation of death. At their basest level they are also entertainment with a capital E, family shows packed with ribald humour and gregarious activity. Attired in the national dress of a ‘gho’ & ‘kira’ my wife and I are instantly accepted. Joining several villagers, also resplendent in their starched Sunday best, we converge upon the makeshift stage, eager to be carried away on a wave of experience.

Squatting on the flagstone floor we take up position in the monastery’s main courtyard which doubles as a temporary amphitheatre. Conveying a double-headed privilege, the Tsechu not only admits foreigners into the normally closed inner sanctums of the Dzong, it also permits, even encourages them to take photographs. Around us the air is buzzing with chatter, picnics are spread out across blankets and children run around playing tag. There is nothing formal or imposing about the event, the atmosphere is one of pure carnival. Indeed, outside the Dzong dozens of stalls perpetuate the feel of a rowdy village fete. Here one can get involved in drinking games, funfair side-shows and gamble for dizzying amounts of money. At random revellers seem to drift from one activity to another. Against this swirling hubbub the dances remain a constant fixture before a jovial shifting audience.

Comprising of just under twenty dances the Tsechu encompasses a vast range of emotions, costumes and physical manifestations. All of the dances are enacted in honour of Guru Rimpoche, the 8th century missionary and saint who converted Bhutan and is worshipped as the second Buddha. Performed by both monks and lay people, the dancers take on the forms of wrathful and compassionate deities, heroes, demons and both real and mythological animals. A dance like the ‘Judgement of the Dead’ on the third day depicts a nightmarish and energetic vision of purgatory complete with elaborate masks and costumes. Traditionally the elderly keenly watch this spectacle in preparation for their own demise. In sharp contrast the ‘Black Hat Dance’ sees monks in elegant brocade dresses swirling about the courtyard on the morning of the second day. This ethereal dance evokes yogis who have the power of creating life. Whilst a sketchy written outline decoding what you are witnessing is extremely useful, complex understanding of the dances is unimportant. The sheer drama of the occasion will carry you through. Crowds cheer, boo, hiss and literally scream out ‘he’s behind you’, in true pantomime style, so even the uninitiated won’t get too bogged down in trying to decipher theological images. In any case you will be more than busy marvelling at the physical endurance of the dancers and the artistry of the costumes. A Tsechu possess the sustained energy of a troupe like De La Guarda combined with the visual flamboyancy of the Tropicana Club.

Any foreigner attending a Tsechu and hoping to get away without participation will receive a rude awakening. Firstly it seems that every other Bhutanese citizen speaks fluent English, a skill they are more than delighted to practice. It is also understood that for foreigners to be there at all they have expended a sizeable amount of cash and effort. Hearty greetings are the order of the day, and that is just from the audience. The performers have a series of gags and gestures up their sleeves and will haul you into the festival’s epicentre if you are willing. Like Elizabethan drama playing to both the gallery and the pit, the high art of the dancers is brilliantly offset by the rabble pleasing antics of jesters known as ‘atsara’. These ragged clowns in red masks have the dual function of keeping the crowd in check and subverting the entire proceedings. They mimic the dancers, run around with giant carved phalluses and inflated condoms, engage in rough and tumble with the children, poke fun at the monks and prey upon unsuspecting tourists. On different occasions I am pulled up to partake in a lusty chang drinking ceremony, goaded to engage with the atsara in a public wrestling match and have my camera equipment temporarily confiscated, only to see it flashed in the head Lama’s face during a particularly solemn puja. Partaking in this good-natured ritual humiliation earns me a blessing with a wooden phallus and the wonderful feeling that I am an integral part of the festival.

For me the highlights of the Tsechu are these personal interactive moments. Engaging with a jester in a comical mobile phone conversation using two cheap plastic toys, examining at close quarters the exquisite detail of one of the monk’s beaded costumes and sharing fruit with a family at lunch before throwing the peelings at an atsara (a Tsechu smells, as well as looks, medieval). Over the course of four days one golden moment seamlessly blends into another and the dazzling intensity of the Tsechu never lets up. All too soon we are heading to Trongsa Dzong for the last time to watch the closing ceremony.

Icy climes and frost greet us as we make our way into the courtyard just after sunrise. We are the first to arrive, so keen are we to see the preparation and unveiling of the thondrol, the giant appliqué banner depicting Guru Rimpoche. Attached to the roof and spanning an entire building the 20 x 15 metre banner is rolled up and awaiting its annual two-hour window of veneration. At 8am in front of about 500 hushed people the thondrol is unfurled amidst ceremonial drumming, dancing monks and deep, resonating blasts from Tibetan Horns. Staggered by its intricate beauty I try and contemplate how such a complex tapestry, representing tens of thousands of man-hours, could be undertaken without machinery out here, in the middle of nowhere. Following the example of our hosts we prostrate ourselves before it and queue up to touch our foreheads against the intricately embroidered boarder. At close quarters the detailing intensifies, defying belief. Having paid our respects I turn to my wife and ask her what she makes of it all. Tears once again fill her eyes.
“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen”, she says.