India: Holi Festival of Colors

by Backpacking Tips Asia
(Oslo, Norway)

Welcome to India's craziest festival - the Holi festival. Holi is a religious festival celebrated by the Hindus, and a celebration of arrival of spring. During this festival colored powder is thrown or smeared on people, and it's symbolic because this is a time when Indians are 'alike' - without any distinction of caste, creed, color or sex.

Bonfires are lit at sunset, people playing music, dancing, and drinking. If you're a female traveler traveling alone during this time be careful. Drunk Indian men can be uncomfortable, and it's not advised to spend Holi alone.

Get together with other travelers. If not, ask if you can accompany the staff at the guesthouse you're staying.

And wear clothes you don't mind getting colored ;-) You probably have to throw it afterwards. I wouldn't bring my camera either. Buy a disposable camera instead and pack it in a plastic bag. This worked well for me and the pictures didn't turn out that bad :-)

We celebrated Holi in 2011 in Jaipur.

Where: You can experience Holi almost everywhere in India.

Since the Elephant Festival is in Jaipur the day before the Holi festival, it's practical to celebrate it in Jaipur :-)

Updated on July 02, 2011: Holi Festival in March 2011 was beyond crazy. All of us were dressed in unbelievable color combination. Mostly nasty ones :-P The hotel (Krishna Palace) arranged a Holi party in their garden, with free Holi colors and everybody was throwing water at each other.

Later on we spent the day at a party outside the hotel, which was fun! Locals and tourists were gathered at one place, throwing colors at each other, teaching how to dance Rajasthani-style and lots of music.

Just watch out for people who are throwing powder at your eyes. One of my former class mates got them in her eyes, and it wasn't exactly delightful.















Holi Dates:
Sunday March 20, 2011
Wednesday March 27, 2013
March 17th, 2014

Click here for accommodation in Jaipur

We stayed at Krishna Palace during Holi! They threw a Holi party in their garden :-)

For pictures from Holi and Elephant festival, click here!


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