Ongor Festival celebrated in Lhoka, Tibet

Photo shows that a Tibetan farmer performs traditional horseback archery to celebrate the Ongkor Festival in Gongkar County, Lhoka Prefecture, Tibet autonomous region.

Each year at the crop-ripening time, often falls on the sixth or seventh month of Tibetan calendar, the monks of the monasteries nearby will select an auspicious day to stage the festival, during which the people, all dressed up, carrying barley beer and food, follow the monks, who hold high the Buddhist images, scriptures and prayer flags, and march around their ripening fields and yell for the deity's and Buddha's blessing.

Afterwards, they will have horse racing, archery contests and song and dance performances all night, shifting the atmosphere from solemnity to joyfulness.

The date of the festival in different places varies according to ripening of the crops. As long as you don't mind running from one place to another, you may possibly participate in several Ongkor festivals in a string.