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Published: March 25th 2008
The Elephant Festival initially looked like an organized event which quickly turned into chaos with locals and tourists walking in-between Elephants and the band, eventually blocking the procession. It was fantastic to watch lots of elephants painted up in different colours strolling around a stadium, but the lack of control made the event insane, with a few angry looking elephants about ready to mow down anyone in their way. Later that night the locals lit bonfires on every street corner adding to the intoxicating pollution of India, making Jaipur look like a war zone. Drunk locals ran amuck and all madness broke lose!
The Festival of Colour was probably the most bizarre event I have seen. Words can’t describe the insanity of the day. At about 6am I climbed out of bed and wondered into the street. Immediately people started throwing colored powder on me. I bought myself a bag of red powder to throw back, and yes it was mayhem again! Once the locals had got bored of targeting me because I was a foreigner, they decided to make me dance around in the street like a lunatic while shouting happy holli to the beat of an Indian drum.
Next came out buckets of coloured water and water guns. I got soaked and was covered head to toe in red, green, blue, purple, and yellow colours. My clothes were trashed!
With a bit of persuasion by our driver Gino, I got a tuk tuk into the centre of Jaipur armed with a bag of red and 2 girls from my guest house. We walked through the centre of Jaipur joining in the absolute chaos of the day by throwing powder over everyone. The riot police were out in full force with their guns and canes adding the insanity of the situation we were in. As we walked through the centre of town, drunken locals started getting rough with the girls, taking every opportunity to grope them while covering them with colour. I kept them close and at one point had to shout at some lads because they were upsetting the girls (I thought I was going to get battered!). One of the girls got her necklace pulled off while a little shit stole the bag of red from my pocket. As the day went on, it got more and dodgier so we decided to retreat to the safety
of our guest house before we got mugged, battered or worse!
When I returned, I looked a mess. Glyn was in bed because he has been sick, but even he smiled when he seen the state I was in - I looked like a clown.
We all had showers only to discover that the red colour seems to be a dye. I can't get it off my skin. The girl’s hair has turned red while I have a red forehead and hands. We all look so funny. As I am writing this - its 3 days later and I still have a red dye on my forehead and hands - I am beginning to wonder if it will ever come off! Occasionally I see others with the same problem, its sooo funny
This is India!
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Claire
non-member comment
Hello!
Hey, sounds like you're both having an amazing time! India sounds almost as rough as Beeston :) Keep up the blogs, great to know you're ok xxx