Jaipur. Holi and explosive toilets.

Fort for the Pink City

We flew into Jaipur from Goa 2 days before Holi. We came specifically to Jaipur to see an elephant festival on the eve of Holi. Spirits were high. A succesful booking of a flight into Jaipur, with a transfer in Bangalore, refreshed our wallets with ATM money from home and got into our hotel with no problems.

"The elephant festival is cancelled" says the hotel manager. That was the first thing about it we hear since entering Jaipur. The government cancelled it because of the animal cruelty. BOOOOO!!! We reconfirmed with searching for news on the internet. Sure enough, it was cancelled. Fair enough too, poor elephants. They're regarded as a holy animal but the ones that are "working" under the care of the owner, we don't really know how well they're being treated. Some of them are healthy (looking) and some of them are so sad looking.

Gardens inside the fort

Regardless, we make the best of it. We wandered into the old Pink City, which this city is reknowned for. Wonder why it's called Pink City? Well, it's probably what you're thinking. All the buildings are pink. Literally. Especially in the old city, inside the walls. We met this fellow, Ravi during our walk at night. He lived in France and spoke 5 different languages. Spanish, Italian, English, French, Hindi and his native language (which I can't remember). Ok, 6 languages. All fluently too!

We said our farewells and promised to visit him the next day for Holi, ate some Momo's from a street vendor and hurried back to the hotel not too soon after as one of our friends, Neil, came down with food poisoning. Something he ate at the airport transfer in Bangalore. We brought him some gross ayurvedic medecine reccommended by locals. "Tastes awful" he says, but next day, it brought him right back to shape.

Morning was Holi. Neil and Christina ran out to get more medecine while Christa and Ian were looking over the railing to see if they'll get hammered with coloured powder as part of the festival. They came back clean. We were in utter disbelief. "We have to get them before they get back in". With our Holi powder, we ran out and covered them in it. Some Indians nearyby to us saw us partaking and also "Holi-ed" us. It's started.

Holi powder sold on the streets

We walk down the street to some gentle people dousing us in Holi powder. The police came and chased them away and shouted at us "You should go to a hotel! Get off the street!" - Party poopers. We continued to the main road and was hammered by tons of people Holi-ing us. They would stop the car, get out and rub us with colour. They would stop the motorycycles, get out of rickshaws, run from across the street... it became mayhem. Actual mayhem. Imagine a zombie apocolypse but instead of eating you, they rubbed you with powder. They sniffed you out and found you.

Infact, it got quite unbearable because the girls were being frisked. A quick feel. But a lot of them. Actually, this is a good time for anyone thinking of doing Holi in India - GIRLS: YOU WILL BE GROPED, beforewarned. It was starting to get incredibly annoying and frustrating to have to fend off the pervs and get out of a huge circle of them. The cops provided some relief as they would come and help get rid of the crowd of people. Finally, we've had enough and hopped into a richkshaw. We haggled for 150 rupees to take us around into the old city.

Horrible shot of us being Holi-ed

The driver must've drank some "special lassi" before we got in. As we started he was fine. Half way through the ride, he wasn't even looking at the road and turning right back around to talk to us, swerving right through traffic and missing cars and pedestrians by millimeters. We've had enough of the drunken rickshaw driver very fast and told him to drop us off at a party at a nearby hotel we heard of earlier.

We get upstairs hearing some massive heavy beats with high expectations. At this point, we were completely covered in colour powder and when we got up, it was a rain party. The dance floor had fountains and it was all wet. And sitting on the table was a bunch of holi powder for a whole crowd of nobody. There was us 4 and 2 other Indians. Whatever. Good enough. We neede to avoid the crowd outside for the while. It was getting way too heavy.

Escaping the chaos into the Rain Party

We ended up staying at this party for 5 hours as the crowd actually started to pick up. Uplifting trance to progressive house, the beats were right up Ian's alley. The waterpark dancfloor, not so much. But whatever, we could use a shower in the 35 degree open air party. Beers went around and friends were met as other colour-blasted tourists started trickling in, in avoidance of the chaos outside.

As the party died own we made our way back to the hotel. Around 5pm, the Indians are either too high, too drunk or too tired to continue to party. The next day, Ian started getting some food poisoning. He held it off with some mild stomach pills. We went to the infamous fort in Jaisalmer where "The Fall" was filmed, at least some of it.

It was a very beautiful fort and we spent the whole day just exploring it. It was really actually the old palace where the Maharaja's lived. It was coined "City Palace" with the actual fort a kilometer away to protect the city with secret tunnel access. Yes, we went to the fort via the secret tunnels. This fort also has the biggest cannon in Asia. We weren't allowed to take pictures. You'll have to take our word for it - not that we searched through Asia for the biggest cannon, but it was self proclaimed (by the Indians). It was big, but Ian doesn't think it's the biggest.

Jaipur was the first fort of many, many, forts in the near future. We went back to the hotel for Ian's stomach to brew the nasty. The next morning, Ian didn't take the meds, and Christa also fell ill from some water she drank at the fort the other day. But that day was "on-the-move" day with a 5 hour train ride.

My god, it was the longest 5 hours to Jodhpur ever. R.I.P Toilets...

 See more pictures here

Jaipur - Holi and the Pink City.