Back from India to the glorious London sunshine. Our Indian trip was terrific. As expected, Holi was incredible fun, Bandhavgarh surprised us this time and Varanasi was fascinating, despite having what Julie considers the smelliest old town we have visited, due to the numerous cows in the narrow alleyways.
Holi, celebration of the harvest, of Spring, of colours. We played with colours on the streets, inside the palace grounds and at friends' homes. Even the Elephant festival in Jaipur had a touch of the colours, some people decided to get started early. Mostly with affection, but as the day progresses it becomes a bit more playful and boisterous, and the water pistols come out. We were getting around in an open World War II jeep which added to the hilarity. A serious hose down in a back garden was required at the end to get rid of most of the dye, some took a little longer to fade! A really fabulous couple of days.
Then a mad overnight train to get to Bandhavgarh where we were surprised with how difficult it was to get a tiger sighting. We managed to follow one tiger on one of our days but it was from some distance so the photography was poor. This was a big contrast to our last visit to this park when the sightings were very good. We were told a new female tiger had wandered into the territory, fought one of the adult females and eaten her. Unsurprisingly, this had disrupted the resident tiger behaviour. One thing that hadn't changed a bit was the bureaucracy of the park, that remains evident in abundance. Not to worry. We made the most of being in a rural area and spent a bit of time with some of the local school kids and teachers and we visited some of their homes and saw just how self sufficient they were, living communally in extended families, growing quite a range of crops, with the surplus dried and stored as future supplies.
Then on to Varanasi where the activities of the locals and the pilgrims down at the ghats along the river were fascinating to watch, in particular the evening aarti and sitting on a boat drifting along the river at sunrise was serene and photographically superb. Lots of interesting bathing and prayer activities and the light on the water was outstanding, presumably it's the accumulation over the years of flower petals and other debris in the water which creates the magical colours. 
All too soon another fabulous insight into Indian culture was over. Where to explore next time....?
Some of our photos from this trip have gone on to our FaceBook page and before Easter we would hope to have some high resolution images up on this site in the Slideshow section.
For those of us in London, let's hope this superb weather holds out! Oh, and to the lady below, I hope you have managed to sell that vegetable. It's a dangerous weapon in your hands!
Julie and Adam
April 2011
Holi, Varanasi and Just One Tiger, From a Distance - March 2011
