A Great Celebration of Color
Oh no, I just found out how to make Gifs....
After leaving Port Blaire and a nasty stomach bug behind we found ourselves going to Havelock one more time where we would spend the great Holi Festival. It's a game of colors where all day people are throwing rainbows of powder at eachother, in the air and everywhere!!!! It is just a blast, this was my second time being in India for this festival and I was pretty excited to spend it with my love....
We ended up going to a different side of the Island where there would be more people, more foreigners and more of, well everything. That side of the island had a stronger tourist infrastructure. We found a place called Orient Resort to stay at and this time we had a more beat up chicken coop but even if it was half way standing, this bamboo hut had a fan!
We mostly hung out at the beach, made new friends (lot's of them) and ate westernized food. We met some really good people with whom we still keep in touch. There was Andres, the chef from Argentina with a big permanent smile, he was full of life and was living his dream of traveling the world. There was More and Bar who grew up in a Kibbutz, they were in love, young and ready for whatever life could throw at them. Hadess was another excellent Israelite not afraid of life, she was traveling with our kibbutz couple and they had just started their trip!
Beside hanging out on the beach, we ate a lot and had a couple sit downs at really really slow internet cafees... The internet turned out too expensive to be worth it, they were running the whole island on some satellite service! Plus who really wants to spend their time in front of a computer screen in the Andaman Islands??? Andres found us the best restaurant for tuna steaks, we rented scooters again and mostly really just played in Paradise!
Sometimes you need a vacation from your vacation when you're backpacking across the world
We were definitely in a familiar paradise. That's what I call the kinds of places we tend to get attracted to after some time on the road in places where the culture is so different than ours. These places usually have a lot of foreigners doing everything we do back home but we do it under the coconut trees and the lush beaches in a setting where we feel like kings because the cost of living is so low compared to home. Being that everyone is on some sort of vacation, young and without shame we drink and get high a lot more... That "feeling like king" bit always bothered me, it is nice to have a vacation from your vacation when you're backpacking across the world but sometimes it feels too much like we are exploiting the locals for our entertainment.
On the beach, I usually can't sit still for very long. I had a bag full of scoubidou string so I learned to do a little macramé to turn coconuts into planters, stuck beach plants in them, hung them from the trees and voilà! I made a few of these plant holders and had to refresh people's memory on scoubidou tying and everyone played a little.
Soon enough it was time for Holi...
We had brought from Port Blair a couple bags of colored powders, water guns and balloons. The balloons were too tight and we gave up on water bombs very quickly but after a quick breakfast we headed into town to play Holi! On the way, every family we encountered gently put handfuls of colorful powders on our cheeks and spray us with their water guns or splash us with water balloons.
By the time we got to town we were all multi-color. Bright fluorescent greens and pinks and blues and yellows, purple, red teal... It made me think that this festival might hold the origins of tie-dye. After a couple hours of playing it starts to get a little rowdy, teenage boys and young adults were getting drunk and playing harder. They were throwing and rubbing powder in any passer-by's face. Powder was getting every where, in our mouths, our ears and noses... some kids were throwing buckets of nearly black water and aiming for the foreigners especially! If was really fun mostly, even when it got a little rough, the whole thing seemed to be in good spirit.
When it was all over around noon, we headed straight for the sea to wash off. It was quite a site, the area around each person in the water turned a dark pink and as it was taken away by the current, color kept on seeping out of everyone's bodies. It was so surreal to see, there was something dark about it, it almost looked like we were sitting in a pool of our own blood.
So far this was one of our best days of the honeymoon, we had so much fun. Everyone was a little stained for the next few days with the same hue of pink, it was beautiful and I would really recommend experiencing this festival if you can. Some of you may get the opportunity, it is coming up in the next couple of days, I believe it starts March 1st for the evening festivities and goes on through the next day!
Have fun and until next time....
Previous Episodes:
- Episode 01 ~ Average length of a Honeymoon
- Episode 02 ~ When Giraffes and Camels Play
- Episode 03 ~ Something in the air smells of DMT
- Episode 04 ~ Port Blair and The Bambi Experience
- Episode 05 ~ Landing in Paradise... Finally!!!
- Episode 06 ~ Strange Beach Creatures on Niel Island
- Episode 07 ~ Delhi Belly in Port Blair...
Next Week:
A dark visit from an elf
I want love to be the trend and laziness to be a thing of the past.
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