Happy Holi

I arrived in India yesterday morning to a wild and crazy new year party! Holi!
In the airport we saw a few people with red paint on their faces, nothing crazy just a little Indian decoration. From the taxi, we could see more and more people with coloring, and now they were green and yellow and covered head to toe. They had red or green hair, and the ground was colored with powdered chalk stuff.
Then once we got into the neighborhood we found more people covered with paint. Lots of people were throwing water balloons at each other, and some of the younger boys had water guns. One kid had a Super Soaker with the backpack water resevoir! Still this was a fun day - maybe just a weekend thing.
We finally found our hotel, which means we've had a long driving tour of this event, and its everywhere. We were getting our bags out of the car and someone from above us threw a water balloon at us, sending us scattering and screaming (just me) into the hotel. We checked in, and got settled and were thinking we'd venture out into the neighborhood. So we walked downstairs and found the group bulletin board with tour info and especially the big note detailing our special holiday where they throw colored, powdered paint at one another and then hit each other with water balloons. It started the night before with the full moon, and is the Hindi New Year Celebration. The night before they start bonfires on the corners to scare away the bad spirits and the next day they start with the paint. This sounded like an incredible cultural experience that we must partake in, until we read on that the water balloons are often filled with chemicals, and everyone is drinking alcohol and a marijuana tea! Great fun!
We did go out later, and there were still bands of teenagers looking for some targets on which to use their leftover paint! Luckily, I only got some on my face. My whole life - I've known to watch out for those teenagers!
Last night we needed to change some money to pay off the balance of our tour, but the hotel said - oh, no tomorrow will be better. The money changer is intoxicated and he passed out!
Welcome to India!

If you click on the title there is a link to some good pictures of Holi!