HAPPY HOLI
on Jane in India (India), 12/Apr/2011 18:04, 34 days ago
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20th of March was Holi, the Festival of Colours. The roots of the festival are about good overcoming evil. It's a Spring festival celebrated the night after a full moon, and is basically about having fun and covering people in coloured powder!A group of us, 6 girls, went to Puri to play Holi. We travelled over on a Saturday catching the bus which takes an hour and a half and costs 30 rupees (€0.50). The road to Puri has gorgeous scenery en route, lots of greenery, people dotted here and there in the rice paddies. We checked into Z Hotel which is, I've decided, my favourite thing about coming to Puri! The building is an old converted maharaja's home with big staircases and high ceilings. There's a terrace at the front, where you can sit and enjoy the sea breeze while tucking into pancakes, puri or biryani at a big banquet-style table..perfect. And they have a girls dorm for 100 rupees a night (about €1.50).full moon at Z HotelSaturday evening we wandered down to the market area near the Jagannath temple where there were crowds of people milling about and some great people-watching to be done. Sunday morning was Holi! The hotel-kid gave us our first colours of the day& after breakfast we went out into the streets, and played Holi with random strangers and got covered in colours! It's a really fun friendly festival, and the original idea is that distinctions of caste, class, age etc. are forgotten during Holi. It's also the custom (for men mainly) to drink bhang lassi's - basically smoothies laced with weed. Weed is sold in licensed shops in Puri and seems to be fairly accepted, especially during festivals. I even saw bhang lassis advertised in the local paper and heard they make 'bhang pakoras' too. So we saw lots of happy young guys in the streets! But I was good, believe it or not, and kept to my homemade happy cake instead. Afterwards we went for a dip in the Bay of Bengal to wash all the colours off..which was quite difficult!me& the girls, in rainbowspeople-watching in Purihappy holi.
