Holi Hai!

Today is Holi, a major Indian festival that means you have people rubbing colored powder on your face all day. Daniel and I both got pretty covered. The kids seemed to really enjoy rubbing it into his beard. Holi is known as the Festival of Colors because of the use of bright pigments (purple, pink, red, yellow, green, blue) and is a way to usher in Spring. It originated as a celebration of the death by fire of a demoness named Holika, and the subsequent survival of a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Wikipedia gives this synopsis:

"The main day, Holi, also known as Dhulheti, Dhulandi or Dhulendi, is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other. Bonfires are lit the day before, also known as Holika Dahan (death of Holika) or Chhoti Holi (little Holi). The bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlad had when Demoness Holika, sister of Hiranyakashipu, carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion."

Today we are in Darjeeling, and the Holi celebrations alone have made it a pretty good time. We got here yesterday evening, a day late, due to a Darjeeling strike. We got up Monday morning, checked out of our hotels, and lugged our packs down to the Gangtok jeep stand only to be turned away saying there was nothing going into Darjeeling because the roads were blocked off due to striking. Dejected, we decided to spend the rest of the day lounging, eating, shopping, and strolling down the Marg. Luckily everything worked out getting here on Tuesday, and I am so happy to be back in Darjeeling. I think I left my heart here when we went to Gangtok.

This morning we were finally able to see the mountain! The views of Khangchendzonga, the third highest peak in the world, are one of the main tourist draws to the area and absolutely stunning. We climbed the observation deck at the top of our guest house this morning, hoping, hoping, hoping that the fog had cleared enough and then seemingly out of no where, floating in the sky atop the mist were the peaks. It's hard to adequately describe how mind blowing they are. It's clouded up again this afternoon, but it should be clear again in the morning.

We took a stroll down to the Bhutia Busty Gompa, a shrine which holds the original copy of the Tibetan book of the dead, and had some polite conversation with a monk there. The picture to the side is of a mural there. After lunch we headed to the Darjeeling Zoo. We were welcomed there by a lively Himalayan Black Bear, and continued on the path to see leopards, Tibetan wolves, Bengal and Indian tigers, and even a snow leopard, a personal highlight for myself who decided when I was 6 that it was my favorite animal. We did all this, mind you, covered in pink and purple pigment. The locals got a real kick out of it and a number of people asked to have their picture taken with us.

Only one more full day in Darjeeling, then it's back to Kolkata on Friday morning. We will jeep down to Siliguri, then overnight train it back to the city.