This is part of the blog that was lost. As, in Nepal, women's lib has only got to the stage of women doing most of the men's heavy jobs I thought I'd split the lost blog into a ladies' section and a men's section. Ladies' is the wedding and men's, coming later, is about transport but you all may read either.

And so to the bit you've all been waiting for - the wedding of Prakash and Pooja. We have lots of pictures that tell the story but due to sensibilities about publishing photographs of a wedding we have cut down the number on the blog. I will list here the main differences between a Hindu wedding and a Christian one.

A Hindu wedding goes on all weekend and everybody is invited. In our case there were the night-before celebrations as people gathered in the village (c.200 people), the ceremony and wedding party (c,300 people), the wedding evening party in the groom's village (c.700 people) and, finally, the party on Sunday night for Kathmandu friends (c.200 people).

We expected the ceremony to be in a temple but little ever seems to happen IN a temple and this ceremony was on a bit of roughly cleared ground next to a still-being-constructed Party Palace. Other than the ladies' dresses there was no grandeur to it. Those ladies allowed to go were dressed in their finest saris in fabulous colours. The bride's colour is always red, not white. Perhaps the English get obsessed with the spectacle, location, decor and all that stuff and vie to outdo each other in those respects. Not so Nepalis, it seems. To our eyes the surroundings were scruffy but Nepalis don't care about this and don't even notice it.

All the party-goers from the night before travelled by coaches for 2 hours over unmade roads to the nearest town, Dhading Besi, for the ceremony. The band was on top of a coach. They all then processed through the town, band and trumpets blaring. The groom arrived separately by car. The bride came later.

The bride and groom did not seem to be the centre of attention. The ceremony lasted 4 hours, going through all the necessary rituals and there were always several spectators, mainly the women. At first the bride went through various rituals sitting on the ground being observed by the groom. Then they stood together and exchanged gifts and elaborate garlands, threw flower petals onto the fire, washed their feet, etc., for hours. We could tell the important parts only by the fact that the band struck up again and a lot more people crowded close round the pair making photography difficult. One very important part was when bride, groom and their fathers put their hands together and had water poured over them to signify the joining of the families. Then the bride went away to change into new clothes and jewellery provided by the groom's family. This signifies her move from one family to another. It was the duty of the groom's oldest brother to buy all these new clothes, even down to underwear, and new jewels, etc. I can't imagine this going down well with English brides. The groom's main support at the ceremony was his oldest sister, not a best man. While all this was going on the guests ate the wedding lunch and then the dancing started (men only at this stage) while the poor bride and groom were still sat on the ground outside missing the food and fun. The only drinks were water and liquid yoghurt.

The bride is meant to look miserable and often is in real tears as she is leaving her family and entering a new, unknown family. Pooja, our bride looked a mature and sensible lady but she played her part, keeping her eyes to the ground most of the time. In most cases the bride and groom will have only meet a week or so before the marriage and, in our case, the groom's mother had never met the bride until back at the village that evening after the wedding, all negotiations having been between the fathers. The groom's mother and a large number of the village ladies were not even at the wedding, staying back at the village for their own celebrations. Nor was the bride's mother there. Try keeping Kath away from James' wedding in June !!!

So, to us, it was all a great spectacle but it meant a great deal to every guest. It was a cause of celebration for the whole village and a good reason for a 3 day party. The third day included the children from DNC who were invited to the Kathmandu party in the Swyambunath Party Palace. We managed to squeeze 30 into a 20 seater minibus, including the eight who left last year. For them it was a fantastic treat and a chance to go somewhere different to school and the home. There was a big buffet and they helped themselves. There were men carrying trays of free drinks and one small boy managed to get hold of a free whisky but it was shared by the older boys. There was dancing but they were of the age that dancing was too big an embarrassment. They had a whale of a time just being there.