Pakistan celebrates the beginning of spring
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll be celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival this Saturday, but when it comes to spring festivals, Pakistan is in a league of its own.
Pakistan’s annual Jashan-e-Baharan (spring festival) is celebrated for an entire month!
This year’s Jashan-e-Baharan runs from 18 February till 23 March and is celebrated throughout Pakistan, but most famous, perhaps, are the celebrations in Lahore.
Lahore will be dressed in an appropriate spring attire, and the festival events include musical performances, art and flower displays, books and handicrafts stalls as well as the Canal Mela (festival) during which decorated and illuminated boats and floats are displayed on Lahore Canal.
The most internationally renowned event during the spring festival, however, is the Basant festival, which will run from 24-25 February. The Basant festival transforms Lahore skies with a plethora of colourful kites, and has a long tradition of kite tournaments and battles.
Kite flying has been banned in Pakistan since 2005 after a number of deaths connected to the kite battles, but the ban has been temporarily lifted especially for the Basant festival.
The Jashan-e-Baharan is expected to be particularly spectacular this year, as Pakistan’s governtment is planning to use the festival as a showcase for Pakistani culture aimed at international tourists.
Pakistan launched its Destination Pakistan 2007 campaign earlier this year in an attempt to entice more international visitors to Pakistan. The campaign, which promotes a number of events, such as the Jashan-e-Baharan, the Basant Festival and the equally famous Shandur Polo Festival, has suffered after two recent bomb attacks in Pakistan.
The campaign is also up against Malaysia’s government-funded tourist campaign, Visit Malaysia Year 2007, which seemed to have fared better at enticing even more tourists to an already popular destination.
While Pakistan is unlikely to be as popular a destination as Malaysia any time soon, it most certainly has potential as a destination for the more independent traveller. Personally, I’m already hooked on the idea of a visit to both Lahore and North Pakistan.
Wherever you are, enjoy your spring festival! And if someone could alert the English weather about the forthcoming spring, you’d be my 2007 hero!
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