The Reason White People Don't Throw Dye, or Day 58 in Jaipur

Happy Holi! We were up and out about 10:30 this morning, with a few water balloons and our color and our worst clothes.

Let's explain a little about Holi first (the little that I know). Holi is the Festival of Color. I think the origin is Hindu, and it has to do with this being the one day that the castes could intermix. Maybe the color covers up whoever is underneath so it doesn't matter who you greet.

The color that I keep refering to is bags of powder, dyed to vibrant neons, mostly pinks, purples, greens, yellows, oranges, and blues. Vendors have been selling it on the streets since I've been in India, in giant piles. It was 10 rupees for a small bag, so last night we got about five different colors and a package of water balloons.

Max was set on filling the water balloons with colored water, but the only method we found for filling the balloons was with his CamelBak. We didn't want to mix color in there, so they were just water-full instead of colorful.

There have been signs around for a festival (for tourists), so when we left the hotel, we walked toward the old part of the city. A group of older tourists all in white were walking along the street, so we decided to follow them, and they led us straight to where the "festival" was being held.

Compared to the Elephant Festival yesterday, it was pretty lame. There was an area surrounded by sheets, and when we ducked inside, a band was playing very strident music.

I have been less than impressed with the live music I've been hearing around here. There was some at Amber Fort yesterday that was good, but at both festivals, there have been bands with an ear-piercing short wind instrument, a whining long wind instrument, and a frantic drummer.

There was also music accompanying dance at both festivals, which only differed in the addition of a nasal, whining male singer. Yesterday it sounded bad because just the man was mic'ed, but not the band. Today was just a crazy old man.

But, judging from the Bollywood movies and just our random sampling, I'm sure there must be good music somewhere.

We stole some of their color and some of their food, then went out on our own again to wander the streets (and use the water balloons).

So Holi is not the all out color war that Max and I thought it was. Instead, you go up to people and "greet" them with a swipe of color on each cheek (with an additional swipe on the forehead, on the arms, across the chest or in the hair optional) and often a hug (with one hug to the left, one hug to the right) or a handshake to finish.

When we were walking around, people sitting along the sides of the road or riding by on motorbikes would come up with some color in their hand. I felt like today was a good day to be fairly friendly, because these people didn't have anything they wanted to sell me. So I'd allow some color, and some hugs.

We were invited to ride along on a guy's motorbike for a while, so we headed in toward the city with him. Max was super excited about these water balloons, so the guy (Padik, or something) found us a group of children to chase around. Max, of course, had both the water balloons and the color, so I was left defenseless, getting squirted from three different sides. But while I was distracting them, Max managed to get a few good shots on the kids.

We decided to leave the guy (he was getting a bit too pushy about having us around), and soon another guy offered us a ride. We got dropped along a main street "downtown" and walked along a bit, getting the colored greeting.

I was getting ready to head back when we engaged with another group of kids, one of whom sneak-attacked Max. The eyeful of powder he got basically sealed the deal, and we hailed a rickshaw to take us back to the hotel.

After rinsing a bit, we had lunch up on the roof of the hotel. All of the shops around here were closed for the holiday and food on the street was randomly available, so we decided that was the best bet.

The sauce was delicious, but the "gatta" (some sort of vegetarian sausage) was dry and not very tasty. I got my banana lassi (new favorite drink, and for less than a dollar, I can be extravagant) and some orange juice.

We headed back out to go to the hotel to see if the end of the festival was any more exciting than the beginning was.

It was about 12:30 at this point, and as someone mentioned to me later, the Indians had probably been up drinking for a few hours now, so the greetings were getting more and more "friendly." I was getting groped more often during the hugs, and when Max and I were determining what to do about it, he just told me to slap the guy.

So, today, I slapped my first Indian man.

After that, it was a game of avoidance. I tried to do the color part of the greeting without the physical part of the greeting, but somehow a lot of powder ended up down my shirt (so now I have a patch of purple on my sternum).

So, while I think India is completely do-able as a single female (experienced) traveller in the city, the festivals are one time that I've been glad to have Max to walk on the outside of the street and stare off other guys. He also offered to punch the guys that were groping me, but I think the slap made enough of an impression.

The festival wasn't any more exciting than it was before, so Max snapped a few pictures of other daring tourists with a bunch of color, then we headed back to the hotel to wash off.

I was scrubbing in the shower for a good 20 minutes, and my left hand is still four different colors, there is pink along my scalp, and little dyed bits where my sunglasses sat, but it feels good to be clean again. (My dry skin and hair are complaining a bit, but they'll get over it). So my suspicion is that the Indians aren't going to look as pink as I do tomorrow...

Max went out to get food around 3pm, since I decided that leaving the hotel with armed, drunk Indian men wandering the streets wasn't the brightest of ideas. After that, we stayed in, chatting with other guests on the rooftop restaurant (I got to hold a baby from Holland!), drank some lassi, and watched a bit of TV. We didn't manage our daily juice bar, but I think we'll survive until tomorrow, when we head to Ajmer and Pushkar.

A Happy Holi to you all!