Happy Holi

This morning saw an early beginning as with luggage strapped to the roof we took off to Shahpura. Everywhere there were groups of people carrying flags on their way to the hindu temples.

Eventually we took an obscure road to even smaller alleyways – streets filled with vendors selling coloured powders, kids, livestock, buildings a riot of neon coloured dust. We arrived at this beautiful hilltop Hotel, overlooked by a ruined fortress and a blue Hindu temple as ‘neighbours’.

There was initial confusion with our bookings as they did not recognize the tour company’s name. Light dawned when they heard Adam’s name – we were booked in under his name… LOL.

We then were shown to our rooms, more suites than rooms. It is out of this world luxury. I felt really bad having to shower off the holi paint in that stunning bathroom. yeah… they can definitely burn that white towel after today. After the mess of this morning, it was immaculately cleaned up by 5pm. Well done guys!

We received white gowns and pants and all the party-goers were sitting in the lounge, looking like we all joined some kind of cult. All white and pristine and not sure what we’re getting ourselves into.

We moved out to the lawns where tables were set out with plates of different powdered paints and there were water containers “sprouting” some serious water pistols.

We had a blast… no pun intended! The one guy ran around drenching people with buckets full of water. Poor Sarah got hit twice in 10 minutes. There were kids from the village that sat on the wall and watched us playing – at times pelting us with water balloons which we tried (in vain) to catch. At one point I decided that enough was enough and I’ll quit while I’m still ahead. If you get too much paint and water it becomes a brown mess and I want to take the gown home as a souvenir – colour splotches intact.

We retired to our rooms to try and scrub ourselves clean. The green and purple stains. I look like shrek. I have green patches all over my body and is not sure if my finger and toenails will ever come clean or if I’ll have to wait until they grow out. I feel for the one young lady whose entire face was covered in purple – I hope she gets it out. My ears were caked in green, but it was so much fun.

Then we got something to drink and watched the die-hard crazies play. Adam got his face covered in green (again) and us girls got some splashes of pink, but nothing serious.

Lunch was very good and we almost did not recognize our (now cleaned up) Holi friends. After lunch we took a power nap – kinda hard with the cleanup operation and kids playing outside. Our host looked horrified when we said we want to stroll through the village. Even after our driver said he’d accompany us, he still was as white as a sheet.

We looked at the school next to the hotel (part of the hotel building, still to be renovated) and then walked down the alleyways taking pictures of the monkeys doing trapeze acts on the crisscross of electrical wires. We stopped to look at some local women making bracelets (I bought a purple set) and also visited a small mosque. We then stopped at a shoe-shine “stall” opposite some cows to have Sarah’s shoe fixed. On the way back we visited the powder blue Hindu temple just outside our hotel entrance. This was a small glance into the India I expected.

Our host looked visibly relieved when we returned. We drank some coffee/tea on the 1st floor balcony, where we also had dinner some time later. We took some awesome sunset pictures and made friends with the four aussies that also stayed for the night. Later one guest had some birthday cake with a massive firecracker on it – quite spectacular.

Dinner was lovely with some tomato soup with honey in it and really nice dahl with peanut and coconut flavours. There was also chicken, spinach and mushrooms, rooti and rice. We had a refreshing cold rice pudding with ginger coming through strongly.

I shared some of the Delhi pics with our waitron. He is from Nepal and has been in India for three months. He has not been any further in India than Jaipur and is eager to travel the rest of the country.

Tomorrow we have a hour drive to Jaipur and our driver will collect us at 10am. I see Adam is busy editing pictures and posting on Facebook.

Still want to share with you follow up on the ladies on scooters issue. Apparently the government made a law that all scooter passengers must wear helmets for safety. There was a huge public outcry from the ladies that the helmets mess up their make-up and hair. Then the law was recalled for ladies and helmets are no longer compulsory for them. I did not google or verify this, this is purely the answer I got to the question. Beauty first – safety second, it seems.

Holi greetings
Linda