"Adventure is worthwhile."
We had been back in Manipal for barely a week after our Delhi trip before we were off on our next big adventure. And this one was the most important of them all because it involved The Indian Bucket List's number one item - throwing colors at the Holi Festival. After some investigating we learned that Holi was a much bigger deal in North India than where we were in the southern state of Karnataka. Where we had been the week before in Mathura was actually the best place to celebrate the festival, but we wanted to try out someplace new (and more convenient) so we opted for the happy medium of Mumbai. It was a city we had no prior plans of visiting, and it was just north enough to have decent Holi celebrations. To top it all off, Alicia and I were able to get a free hotel for the week through her dad's work. So after swearing to ourselves we would live off of the free breakfasts and street food, we'd considered the $40 round-trip tickets for the train and trip an acceptable splurge.
A lifetime of Christmas Eves could not have prepared me for the night of Tuesday, March 26th. I could barely sit still from the second we boarded the overnight Mangalore Express train until our arrival in Mumbai 14 hours later. The city wasted no time bringing us face-to-face with the rainbow of people that that could only mean one thing – the Holi Festival of Colors was finally here. It was barely 6 am on our drive to the hotel, but the streets already felt more like part of Wonderland than India’s biggest city.
Our only priority that first day was to experience Holi. After an hour or so of unsuccessfully jumping between various public beaches and temples, we found ourselves at a rooftop bar. We met a lot of other students - both Indian and international - and ended up having a perfect Holi experience. It's probably best explained in pictures...
A lifetime of Christmas Eves could not have prepared me for the night of Tuesday, March 26th. I could barely sit still from the second we boarded the overnight Mangalore Express train until our arrival in Mumbai 14 hours later. The city wasted no time bringing us face-to-face with the rainbow of people that that could only mean one thing – the Holi Festival of Colors was finally here. It was barely 6 am on our drive to the hotel, but the streets already felt more like part of Wonderland than India’s biggest city.
Our only priority that first day was to experience Holi. After an hour or so of unsuccessfully jumping between various public beaches and temples, we found ourselves at a rooftop bar. We met a lot of other students - both Indian and international - and ended up having a perfect Holi experience. It's probably best explained in pictures...
We spent the next few days exploring the city, from the Gateway of India and Marine Drive downtown to the Dhobi Ghat in the Andheri slums. One morning we took a ferry to an island in the Mumbai harbor that houses the Elephanta Caves, a group of five hundred year old Hindu and Buddhist caves filled with larger-than-life sculptures carved into the rock. Then after spending the week running around trying to see as much of the city as possible, we decided to spend our final day taking advantage of everything our fancy, free hotel had to offer.
Sometimes you really just have to be a waste of space for a while.
Sometimes you really just have to be a waste of space for a while.
Dhobi Ghat The largest outdoor laundromat in the world. | |