The Archers of Tawang
(thomas;2023-June-25)
The town of Tawang (in Arunachal Pradesh) is wedged between Bhutan to the south and the mighty Chinese to the north. It's surrounded by mountains of up to 4500 to 5000m altitude, with snow on the summits glistening in the distance. While exploring the place we ran into a small group of young archers who were practising their sport on a thankfully quiet side street. Of course, we stopped and buttonholed them about their kit, the bows (pretty heavy and definitely the real thing) and the arrows they used etc. They were shooting from a distance of around 50m at a pretty small wooden post, with about one shot in ten hitting the target.
And of course, when they asked whether Thomas wanted to try his hand, he could not really have said no, could he?! The only little snag was that in the distance, around 45m away and not really that far away from the wooden post a small white lorry was parked. Now Thomas has never before used a real bow, a heavy and strong one like that, not to talk about the impressively sharp arrows... and then that lorry stood there, waiting, with its four very tempting tires plus an as yet undamaged windscreen...
But as ever... no risk, no fun! So he aimed and shot and though he did miss the target, the shot landed only about 30cm off. The lorry was fine and the boys were incredulous. Beginner's luck.
The next day, while strolling down from a Buddhist monastery above Tawang, we met another, bigger group of archers, adults this time, who were having a really good time (including loads of beer). Their kit was very similar to what we had seen the day before but this was clearly a more serious undertaking as they were divided into two teams which were shooting for money... and not just 20 or 50 rupees either... we're talking many hundreds here. See the video:
Want to read more? Go back to The Shaman of Hari or go on to DancingQueens or go up to Meet the Locals
$updated from: Blog.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:39 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$