Today we were lucky enough to still be in India to help celebrate one of the most important days of the year in the Hindi calendar – the festival known as Holi. It celebrates the divine love of the god Radha and Krishna. The day, also known as the Festival of Colours, signifies the triumph of good over evil. It’s held early in spring each year but, like a lot of things, was canceled by Covid-19 for the past two so the Indian population were really keen to make up for lost time.
Preparation for us started a week beforehand in Pushkar when, on advice, we acquired some clothing the we “don’t want to keep”. Our tour leader in conjunction with other Intrepid leaders and a couple from rival firm G Adventures had arranged for us to celebrate the day on the rooftop of our hotel in Karol Bagh.
Sadly, Eric and Irene couldn’t join us when we arrived upstairs just after 10:00am as they were already on their way to Kathmandu and Goa, respectively. So it was up to Anna, Cheryl, Kerry, Anant and me to represent the North India Revealed crew. In the next 30 minutes more people arrived and the Festival of Colour truly got underway. Plates of powder, in a fabulous array of bright colours, were placed around the rooftop and, on a whim, people were throwing it over each other. Clothes, hair, face, arm legs, it didn’t matter. Wherever you could “colour” someone you did and you could be “coloured” very easily as well. Everyone, young and old, got right into the spirit of the occasion. The bar was opened so people celebrated even harder. Holi music was playing so a bit of dancing happened sporadically too. The tour leaders of the respective tours there made sure that everyone was involved. When the powder was mixed with water chaos ensued as people tried to avoid getting a multi-coloured drenching. Everyone failed.
The hotel provided a really nice Indian lunch to give the revelers a bit of additional stamina. A few hours later the hose appeared on and was turned on all the party-goers to cool them down and maybe start the clean-up process. All it really did fore most was meld the colours all into a shade of mostly pink or purple. A couple of girls from another group over-indulged at the bar which made for a very sorry sight but most people didn’t overdo it.
We exited the scene after the group photo was taken and went for a shower to try to clean ourselves up a bit before we head to the airport later in the day. Well, there was some impression made on “the colours” in the shower but the result was far from perfect. A thousand thank-yous to Cheryl and Anna for lending up their shower and sharing their room for our last few hours in India. It was a god-send! We’d already checked-out so we were in a bit of a pickle. Funny thing is, if we’d arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport covered in all sorts of bright colours I doubt we’d have hardly raised an eyebrow amongst the locals.
After our clean-up we just killed some time in the 3rd floor foyer with a coffee and some chat with a couple of German girls just about to start their Indian adventure. Just before 7:00pm we moved to the front lobby, our driver arrived and we headed for the airport. Traffic was relatively light, our driver was a great conservationist. We covered the usual topics like cricket and politics and also got some insight into his personal position. He was from up north in the foothills of the Himalaya and had been in self-imposed exile from his family for about eight years, driving cabs just to earn a rupee to support them. The tone and depth of our conversation suggested that driving cabs was well below his capabilities, but I reckon that’s probably the case for many cab drivers the world over.
We happily tipped our driver 500 rupees and proceeded through the doors into the Departures hall. The lines for check-in were numerous and very long. By the way, to get into the Departure hall you’ve gotta show your passport and your boarding pass to an armed law enforcement official (not sure if he was police or army). The same was the case at the Kochi International Airport. After mistakenly standing in the wrong line (Thai Airways, which was going nowhere ‘cos check-in hadn’t opened yet) we moved to the Malaysia Airlines queue. Only ten minutes lost. That queue moved marginally faster. It split into three separate queues closer to the desk and of course ours was the slowest. It’s frustrating seeing people who were behind you get processed before you. We had plenty of time and our turn came with still two hours to go before departure. The chap behind the desk looked at our luggage and declared that our ticket did not include any check-in, just like his colleague in Melbourne seven weeks ago. I disagreed and asked him to check again, which he did and found the record we was looking for. Thanks to Leanne at Bendigo Travelcentre for getting this sorted. She’d provided me with plenty of evidence so I was ready for a fight (again) but thankfully that was avoided. The rest of check-in went very smoothly and quickly. Our two checked-in cases weighed 16kgs each. Cheryl had loaned us her portable baggage scales back at the hotel so I was confident that our weight wouldn’t be a problem, after all the actions we’d taken during the last six weeks to keep on top of it.
Sailing through Customs few found a KFC for dinner and a nice place for a good coffee then headed for the boarding lounge to wait our turn. On time and just after 11:00pm flight MH191 rolled onto the runway and we were off.
Farewell India! We’ve had one fantastic time with you!
No comments:
Post a Comment