Happy Holi!

Next stop Rajasthan, the land of Maharajas, stunning palaces and grand forts where you can imagine scenes with people sitting on cushions being fanned with giant palm fronds while eating classic indian dishes of tandoor and naan.

The trip from Agra to Jaipur was courtesy of Rajasthan State bus service. Stocked up on 'pluggers' and a pack of digestive biscuits we survived the 6 hours it took to drive 260km on the 'luxury' bus (we think that means air-conditioning and a seat each). Luckily, unlike Turkey, the driver didn't smoke like a chimney the whole way. At this point we offer a tip for those planning to travel on an Indian bus - full volume on an iPod almost drowns out the Bollywood movie blaring from the TV for the full journey. Almost.

We arrived in Jaipur with plans for two days to see the sights of the Pink City and maybe do some shopping for the precious and semi-precious stones for which the city is famous. We headed out that afternoon to check out the streets of the old walled city which are filled with street stalls. But rather than bustling streets we found most of the markets closed and the people that were out busy buying small plastic bags of powder in brilliant colours as well as water pistols. Then we realised that the next day was Holi festival, the Festival of Colours, which is a celebration where people smear brightly coloured powder on each other's cheeks and wish each other Happy Holi. Sounds cheery enough we thought, why not check it out. Al's favourite powder distributors were these small little packets about 1/3 the size of a tennis ball. A group we were talking to showed us how when you hurled it at someone the paper mâché casing burst and coated the person in bright powder - Happy Holi!

Luckily we hadn't been pinning our hopes on seeing the famous Elephant Festival traditionally held in Holi eve. The day before the event the organisers decided not to include elephants in the celebrations as some people had pointed out that in this day and age making them play polo, hold a tug-of-war and other ridiculous things for the entertainment of people was possibly not really in line with animal rights. You think?

Instead we went to a Bollywood film. We'd heard that Jaipur was a great place to see a Hindi film. As part of our 'research' for the trip we'd watched a few Bollywood movies that had been pretty entertaining so we decided to head along. Of course the movies we'd seen at home had English sub-titles. Not to worry, it's Bollywood, how hard can the plot be to follow?

Walking in to the Raj Mandir theatre was like stepping back in time. It was a fantastic, huge place with sweeping staircases and ornate ceilings. The film was a 2 & 1/2 hour extravaganza complete with 15 minute interval. It was a light hearted boy meets girl kind of film with car chases and fights and remarkably few songs / dance routines. Apparently it was quite funny as well, but this is difficult to judge given we didn't understand a word of the dialogue. What seemed the funniest was one particular character played by a Joe Pesci-like actor. Every time this one actor came on screen the whole theatre erupted in laughter.

The next morning Holi started out calmly with the owners of the guesthouse wishing us happy Holi, smearing a small dot of powder on our foreheads and offering us some special Indian sweets. Since all the tourist sights and shops were closed we decided to wander the city streets and check out Holi. Outside the streets were quiet but the rickshaw drivers were in on the
Holi action, our guy stopped every so often to smear a passerby with bright orange powder. Once we started walking inside the walls of the old city however it was on for young and old, the Holi smearing began in earnest. Every 100m or so a few people would come up to you and smear more powder on until you resembled some kind of zombie sci- fi creature. Then randomly from above you might get water bombed or squirted by some kids while their parents watched and laughed.

A group of young kids with their dads explained that it was mostly a family affair with celebrations going on in the garden of the family homes rather than on the streets. The streets are left to men, boys and foreigners. After an hour or so we realised the wisdom of the women and families staying at home and we retreated to the powder-free zone of a local park where the usual 18 games of cricket were being played at the same time. We hadn't even sat down to watch when a group of young guys descended on us. We were thinking about accepting their pleas to join until we saw the bowlers hurtling in the fastest backyard cricket deliveries we'd ever seen. Think we'll just watch.

We headed back to our guesthouse where most of the guests were returning from being Holi-ed and spent the afternoon lazing by the pool and exchanging travel stories with a family from the UK whose teenage kids must be the most well travelled people we know. In terms of service and atmosphere the family-run Meghniwas Guesthouse where we stayed in Jaipur was an absolute winner. The owner, Mrs Singh, plied us with salted lemon water to help rehydrate after Michelle's obligatory traveller's belly experience and she was super helpful with every question we had. The only downside being that unfortunately the beds were so rock hard neither of us slept.

The next day we had big plans for lots of sightseeing and shopping if we were going to make our train that night to Jodphur. First stop the Amber Fort just outside Jaipur, which is huge and was home to the ruling Moghul and his umpteen wives when this was the capital of Rajasthan. We passed on the elephant ride up the hill but apparently they are treated quite well and only allowed to make the trip 5 times a day. Not a bad gig for an elephant if you don't mind being painted.

On to an outdoor royal observatory built by the ruling Maharaja in the 18th century. It was a large park area with giant stone constructions used to measure everything from the angle of celestial bodies compared to the earth though to the local time accurate to the nearest 2 seconds. Unfortunately we didn't really have the chance to find out much about this as Michelle suddenly realised the error in not taking antibiotics last week. We decided to stay an extra night with the lovely Mrs Singh rather then get on the overnight train which meant we had to miss out on Jodphur, the Blue city. Instead we took the train the next day directly to the lakeside getaway of Udaipur; our luxury accommodation anniversary treat for the trip awaited!