Colors: The Land of Holi

Holi in Jaipur

Holi is a festival to celebrate the destruction of evil and the rising of good. It is also known as the festival of color. It is a very important Hindu festival and is celebrated throughout India and surrounding countries. I was lucky enough to see it twice: once in Kathmandu, Nepal and once in Jaipur, India. I almost messed up the dates and missed both though. Depending on the region where you are, the festival is celebrated on three different days. So technically, I could have actually seen it three times.

Color Puffs

Holi was a wild disorganized mess, but incredibly fun. In both cases, I was an in a touristy parts of town: the downtown areas where there are just hostels, businesses, and markets. So, it was an extra wild time as a lot of locals come after the terrorists. The latter are generally celebrating it with no care of the mess that is made and are more willing to go with wild ideas. But the biggest menace are large groups of kids. They have a lot of water balloons full of paint. In Kathmandu, which is a tall city, I had to watch out very carefully as the tallest balconies had children lobbing water balloons full of color at me. And if I was hit with one, I would not have a good day as these were not full of powder and water, but permanent paint. Also, I had to avoid the colors as I was going to the airport, where they were denying entry to messy people in order to keep the planes clean.

Delhi Airport Holi

I was mostly successful at staying clean. Though, some color did sneak through. Holi in Jaipur was a bit more controlled The hostel I was in held a party within its walls. They advised we did not head out till later in the day when hopefully the celebrations died down a little. As a tourist, especially as a blonde tourist, I stick out a lot. Thus, the locals target us both for good intentions of covering us in the color and bad intentions of pickpocketing or groping. While at the hostel, we've continually went to the corner store, getting new and different types of ways to color ourselves from colored powders to water balloons. There were also unique little bombs of color which you light with a fuse so they blow up and send large clouds of powder in every direction. I don't have any clue what it was in the colors, but it was a ton of fun. As Holi was my first day in India, I had serious culture shock. Firstly, it is wildly crowded and is very much still a developing country. And it is India, which is wildly different than any other country I have ever seen. Overall, holy was wild experience and I'd love to go try it again. I really would love to get in the middle of a massive crowd for this festival. It's a really interesting concept of everybody painting each other to celebrate the holiday. That's quite a fun time. Wholesome fun for the whole family, what's not to love?! I even got to keep yellow hair for multiple weeks!

Locals on the street