On 28May, which was chinese ‘duan wu jie’ marked the annual big festival among the tibetans in shangrila – horse racing festival. Richard and i had been planning for the trip and looking forward to go witnessed the occasion. We did go but what we saw was a little disappointing…:(

The festival was supposed to be a three days event. On the first day, with great excitement, i sacrificed my beauty sleep, woke up early, we set off to attend the festival at the stadium. It was packed with people. They had a few dance and song performances at the opening ceremony…it ended like 10am. And guess what happen after that?There was a brief announcement saying the morning event had come to an end, in the afternoon there would be horse racing as well as archery competition. That was it!!!!!!

There were no details as to what time the afternoon event started, what exactly they be doing for the afternoon!!!We tried to ask few people, including those guards on duty, no one know!!!!And appeared that no one seemed to care what time next event started, what events etc, they happily left the stadium.

Richard and i looked at each other, what should we do now?It was only 10am plus and if the next event started at 2pm, we had four hours to spare…what to do with those hours…there was no shopping mall or starbuck around for us to pass time…:( Nevertheless, we still decided to stay and see what happened next since our main purpose for this trip was to witness the festival.

We bought some food to eat, and for the rest of the time, just sat inside the stadium, waited and waited and waited  for the afternoon event to start……

Finally….after waiting for that few hours (which seemed like eternity), the afternoon event was ready to start. There was no announcement that it was officially started, only when we saw few horses racing, then we realised it started!!!!Just when we began to get excited again seeing the races, we were confronted with another setback and disappointment. There were only three rounds of horce racing and no one knows what was going on again!!!!!Not much went on again in the stadium….

As i looked around the stadium, eventhough there was nothing going on, the locals still happily chatting among themselves, chewing melon seeds etc. Guess to the locals, structure system is not crucial for them – it did not matter if they know what time event started, what events going on etc. Just sitting around doing nothing is an enjoyment too..

It had been a long day for us, it was super hot day, we did not think we want to continue to sit around when no events were going on…we decided to make our way home. At the exit, i wanted to give a last try to ask the horse racers if they know what is going on for the day. I asked one of them, and her reply was ‘i am not sure, i did not know what time or when i suppose to go for the race’!!!!!Can you beat it?It was indeed a very unforgettable day for us!!!!!