Embrace Bhutan Cultural Tour
Bumthang | Bhutan
15 Nov 2019 | Fri
Day 09 of 13
Local Bhutanese Archery Competition
After leaving Ta Rimochen Lhakhang, we got back on the road to continue our journey to visit the Prakhar Tshechu Festival at Prakhar Lhakhang. After a short time, we happened upon a local Bhutanese archery competition.

For this particular event, there were two groups competing against each other. They each had targets set up on opposite sides of the road, with them shooting their arrows over the road. We did not know the official distance, but we were surprised by the long distance between the targets.

When an individual hit their target, all the members of that group would perform a dance together while chanting. The opposing group on the receiving side (near the target) would also perform a series of dances and chants trying to distract their opponent.

As a group observing, we found this to be quite dangerous, because the receiving group would wait until the last possible moment to get out of the way before the arrow hit (or missed) its target.
We had heard about such events, but didn’t know if we would get to see one. Even though it was a brief stop, we felt so lucky to have the opportunity to see an event like this!