Holi Pics: "Bura Na Mano Holi Hai!"

Day 50: Holi Hai!

Monday March 1, 2010 we celebrated Holi.  It is the festival of colours.  It was the most crazy day in India so far.  We met will a huge group of locals to celebrate the throwing of colors on eachother.  I had no idea what to expect.  We were informed to wear white shirts so that the colors would show up better.  All we knew was that we would be covered in color powder and there would be a rain dance.  We arrived at our Holi destination at 10:00 am in the morning.  It was like an outdoor club in the morning.  We didn't realize the rain dance would be sprinklers that would get us completely drenched!  So not only were we colored, we were completely wet, too!  It was a really long, but fun day.  We don't have anything close to being similar back home.  All I can say is that Indians know how to live in the moment and celebrate in a huge way.  I'm just glad I was in India during this festival.  I don't think my experience would be the same without it.  I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Goa, India

Day 32: Three Day Weekend in Goa

After working long hours for a month straight, we finally got to enjoy a 3 day weekend in Goa.  We just wanted to relax, sit on the beach and drink beers. Goa is really nice.  The water is greenish-blue, the sand is soft and the air is clean.  There are a tons of people that try to sell you things, like, drums, bootleg CDs, foot massages, and marble carvings.  It is like no other beach that I've seen.  Cows and dogs roam the beach alongside women carrying fruit baskets on their head.  The sellers after 10 minutes really started to annoy me, so I asked our server, if there was something he could do about everyone bothering us because I wanted to take a nap.  And he says sure.  He then proceeds to whistle to a few dogs that are sleeping not to far from us.  They come running and he introduces his guard dogs to us (Lucy, Blackie, Lucky and one older dog I can't remember the name of).  I thought he was joking at first, but to my surprise they really did guard us from anyone who tried to come near us.  They settled in around us and made sure no one bothered us.  That was the best part of the whole trip.  If a vendor did try to come close to us, Lucy would come barking and scare them away.  One guy was so scared, he jump on a woman's beach chair and didn't want to get off!  It was hilarious.  I wish I had more time to spend there.  The weekend ended too soon.  We didn't even get to see the Casino or the Spice Plantation.  But, we did catch up on some well deserved rest.