I luckily happened to be in India for the annual Holi Festival, a Hindi celebration across India and Nepal to celebrate the Hindi God, Ganesha, love over evil and the spring. It's also known as the "festival of colours" or "festival of love".
I was in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, and as soon as I had left my hotel there were people in the streets throwing coloured powder, singing, dancing and blowing horns. Everywhere you looked there were people young and old covered in colour paint! It was quite a spectacle to see!I luckily had already planned my outfit of old clothes that I didn't mind getting ruined as I'd been told the local people love to target foreigners! And they weren't wrong! Everyone we met would shout "happy Holi" then either throw print at me or smother the powder all over my face! The tuk tuk man would stop and greet people and friends on the way who also would shake my hand and cover me in paint!
We were lucky enough for him to take us down some side streets where the real local parties were. Families of all ages were dancing in the street and we joined them which was great fun and quite surreal! One old lady in her 80's took a shine to me and wouldn't let me go, much to the amusement of everyone else! Most of the celebrations were over early afternoon and I headed back to the hotel to clean up. Luckily the powder did come off my skin and hair, not sure what I would have done if i would have stayed looking like an Oompa Loompa!!
