Holi Festival, India

So much colour! Holi celebrations are lively with an undercurrent of love and romance in the air. People convene for special celebrations, temporary bazaars are set up to cater special demands after the rich harvest, various local games and competitions take place, people sing, dance and gets into a trance, social taboos are forgotten; invisible walls of caste and status subsides temporarily giving way to relentless celebrations. What a spectacular scene full of colour!

Visit the official Holi Festival website for more details.

Parallel 50. This is Life. This is Travel

On arrival, pick up and transfer to your hotel. Remaining day is proposed at leisure.

We will be driving to Goverdhan town in the morning and check in at the preassigned hotel on arrival. This town and the various adjoining towns and villages is famous as ‘Braj region’. This is where ‘Lord Krishna’, possibly the most colorful Indian god, spent his entire childhood and adolescence. Lord Krishna was loved and revered by all and had numerous girlfriends. Radha was Krishna’s favorite; they are still considered as the eternal lovers. Krishna was from Nandgaon and Radha was from Barsana. Every year, boys from Nandgaon, in the leadership of Krishna, used to raid Barsana to drench the ladies in colors. The ladies used to resist with well oiled wooden sticks, beating and forcing the boy-gang to retreat at the end. The next day, Barsana would raid Nandgaon to settle the score and meeting the same fate. Thousands of years later, the tradition still continues and the whole region gets engrossed in the love of Krishna and Radha, playing with colors and creating a spectacular scene. We will spend 04 days in this region to experience and photograph this cultural extravaganza. Time permitting, we will also visit the water palaces of Deeg where we can photograph colorful fountains, operational only once every year during this period.

After breakfast you may drive to Vrindavan to observe the festival celebrated by the widows. Later, drive to Agra and check in at your hotel. If interested and based on availability of time, you may visit Taj Mahal at sunset.

Visit the incomparable monument of love and perhaps the most photogenic monument in the world- Taj Mahal at sunrise. You may also visit the historical Agra Fort and later, drive to Delhi and check in at the hotel on arrival.

Morning 5-6 hours drive to check in at a hotel near Anandpur Sahib- venue for the spectacular Hola Mohalla festival. Keeping our base at this hotel we will cover the medley of events including gutkabazzi (Sikh martial art), equestrian and rural sports for next three days.

Enjoy the scene once again during the day. Later drive to Chandigarh and board the flight to Delhi.

Early morning transfer to the airport to board the flight to Vadodara. Drive further to Chhota Udepur and check in at your heritage home. During our stay, we will visit villages around Chhota Udepur to experience a variety of Holi celebrations.

Today, after refreshment visit Rumadia Mela. This is a small village and will have procession of locals, ladies adorning their best outfits whereas man singing and dancing around a rotatary shaft which comes into play with people hanging and taking a round defying the gravitational force.

Spend the day enjoying, exploring and photographing activities at Kawant Mela which is considered best among the tribal fairs of the region. Group of villagers wearing peacock feathers as part of head gear would be the main attraction of the fair.

Visit a nearby village in the morning. Observe the traditional Pithora paintings in selected homes. Later, check out and drive back to Vadodara to board an evening flight back to Delhi. Stay overnight in Delhi.

At appropriate time transfer to Indira Gandhi international airport in Delhi to board the flight to your onwards destination. The tour ends.


Holi Festival