March 3rd 2007 - The Festival of Holi
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| Saturday morning. The dark shapes hanging from the trees opposite Martin's hotel room are... fruit bats! |
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| And here's a closer view of them from the pavement... |
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| The Victoria Memorial was only a 10 minute walk from the hotel so Martin took a stroll around it.... |
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| Geese in the gardens of the Victoria Memorial |
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| Just as Martin was leaving the Victoria Memorial, this family arrived by taxi. Their faces are decorated for the Festival of Holi. We saw much more of this wonderful spectacle as the day went on. |
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| After lunch, Martin and Christophe took a taxi from the hotel up to the Howrah Bridge. People were swimming in the Hooghly River. Note how the dye from them has coloured the water! |
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| The Kolkata flower market is to be found along the banks of the river near the bridge. These photos do not come near to doing the vibrant colours justice. |
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| Happy Holi! |
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| The guy behind Martin cheekily sidled up to be in the photo without Martin realising. How cheeky is that? ;-) |
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| They sell ice at the flower market too. Perhaps the market should be renamed? |
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| At the far end of the market, back under the bridge, we found this lot dancing and singing, doubtless excited about the special day. |
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| After the market, we headed on foot into the city and just wandered.... |
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| We saw quite a few cows, basically doing whatever they fancied. "Hey, I'm sacred... drive around me.. I'm not mooooo....ving for anyone. Sari about that! Blame Christophe and his amazing puns :-) |
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| Christophe queuing behind a cow at a corner shop |
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| A cow supervising the washing up |
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| We got accosted by an over enthusiastic local who would have smeared die all over our faces if we'd let him. We'd both read what wikipedia says about Holi dyes, so managed to keep most of it at bay! |
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| It took ages and much scrubbing to get this stuff off back at the hotel! That said, when we went out again in the evening to watch the real celebrations, with bonfires in the streets, singing and dancing, we encountered the other traditional passtime... water bombing! Kids throw water baloons, some of which also contain flourescent dyes at passers by, especially westerners like us (much more fun!). Martin's North Face trousers will never be the same again! |
What the camera didn't see
So what else did we get up to apart from working and the festival of Holi?
Saturday continued with some serious on-foot wandering through the back-streets of Kolkata and was fascinating. We saw lots of bonfires in the middle of the streets, with cars and bicycles having to squeeze past the flames. People were singing and dancing near them and some people had long bamboo poles with bunches of herbs tied to them, which they would set fire to in the flames. Yes, it was pretty aromatic! After much wandering, we also hopped onto a tram and went.... wherever it was that the tram went. Finally, early to mid-evening, we took a yellow taxi back to the hotel. We had a bite to eat (and a King Fisher beer of course), watched the Philipino band for a short time and then headed out to a bar that Christophe knew of. There we saw a really quite awesome blues band. The guitarist had a Superman top on... and he had every right to wear it!
On Sunday, Martin slept a little late and then got up with only one thing in mind. Shopping! Martin and Christophe both had presents to buy so we went to the hotel gift shop and out to a local mall. 1 handmade silk shawl, 1 handmade silk wall hanging, 2 bags and an Indian cricket team official shirt later, we headed back to the hotel. Later we hooked up with Carl and Estelle, who had just arrived in India that day and went back into the town to a proper market. With a little help from a market official (doubtless on commission), we found a small shop that sold various local items and much bartering was done (Carl was especially awesome!). We also bought a selection of spices and teas from another market stall.
We rounded the day off with an indian meal at the hotel. Excellent. What a great weekend!
Footnote: Just when we thought we were safe etc etc , we got asked to help with a system "crisis" and ended up working until 4am again. Given that Martin's wake up call was set for 5am so he could check out and get to the airport in time, there really was no point in going to bed that night... so he didn't.
The journey home was uneventful and Martin caught up on some of his lost sleep on the flights :-)
The End. Here's to the next trip to Kolkata!