Holi Quest for Adventure

Heart racing, trilling, mind-blowing, crowded, hot, hysterical, joyful, crazy… the list is endless when trying to describe the Holi Festival.

What is the Holi Festival? One of the most renowned festivals in India that marks the arrival of spring, which is most known around the world as the festival of colors. Most of you have probably seen images across social media and the web of people throwing the colors and being covered with the colors, yet being there to experience it in person is on a whole other level.

I tend to find myself drawn to the extreme heart-racing adrenaline-pumping adventures, but hands down I will admit that I was apprehensive about going to this festival as I had heard all the warnings; your gear will be destroyed, the crowds are crushing and stifling, and it takes forever to clean the colors and dyes out of your hair and off your skin.

As usual, my crazy ideas generally start by viewing an inspiring photograph of a place, culture, or event, and this was no different.

We did not quite know what to expect, but when the colors started flying, rather than run for cover, we seemed to embrace the chaos and became more determined to jump into the middle of it all! What was most surprising was the absolute vigor and pure joy of hundreds of thousands of people who were celebrating like children. We were warned, as visitors, that we would be targets, and we were quite covered with color, but for the most part, it was done in the same joyfulness of the entire celebration and not with the sole purpose of creaming us in malice. In a crowd that large, there are always those that cross the line, but the percentage was incredibly small, especially given that we chose to be in the thick of it and not stand above it all!

Never has there seemed to be more excitement and laughter, than during this crazy trip.

Having a solid and very experienced ground team made all the difference. We had the most incredible, humorous, caring, and up for anything, local Indian guide- Mr. Ashim, who will be joining me for all my future trips there. I had also put on extra local guides for assistance. This not only gave us the comfort to know that we had plenty of help if we needed to retreat, catch our breath, re-group, or just call it quits for the day; it helped us to gain special access into some of the temples.

The throwing of the colors, the Hindi way of celebrating, was only for the first few days. We then traveled on to Amistar, home of the golden temple, where we learned about the beautiful Sikh culture. While in Amistar, we also attended the changing of the guards at the border of Pakistan; it was an incredible process between the guards and countrymen on each side. It was mind-blowing to see the crowds of spectators in each country banter with one other. This is an experience one must put on their list!

Our journey then took us to Anandpur for the Hola Mohalla, the Sikh celebration of Holi. Their festival is more of a dramatic completion of horse racing; mock martial arts battles, displays of weaponry, archery, and wrestling. The men dress up in traditional martial costumes with very large and fancy decorated turbans, which can weight up to 100lbs. There were some colors exchanged between the men on the field, but for the most part, we were out of the line of fire. Here we were literally like rock stars, as this festival is not a well-known festival; many of the pilgrims come from very small remote areas, traveling for days to attend, and they are not as used to foreign visitors. We were able to hop on the back of the trucks to ride through the crowded streets, join in the festivities, and I was even able to drive one of those big tractors.

Yes, there were days that were challenging, but the passionate photographers traveling with me live for these thrilling moments and opportunities to photograph the heart of the action. It is safe to assume we went way beyond the photograph and thoroughly immersed ourselves in the whole experience. What I truly loved was photographing what we were feeling and seeing with raw emotion.

Although my schedule is in conflict with the festival dates in 2019, it was such an extraordinary experience that I don’t want to wait until 2020 to offer it again. I am thrilled, Greg Thomason who was with me this year and co-teaches the Spirit-N-Light it up workshop, will be able to lead the Holi Festival trip in March of 2019!

You can view more images here –