Woolly says – With Zoe in much better form and having had some breakfast, we set off to have a look at Kathmandu Durbar Square, based in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu Kingdom it is one of three Durbar (Royal palace) Squares in the city, all of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I knew that it wouldn’t look the same as the pictures I had seen on google or in the guidebooks as several buildings in the Square had collapsed due to the major earthquake on 25th April 2015 and had yet to be rebuilt but it was still a must do place. Our planning however had a slight hitch in it…… it was Holi!
We had known about the festival but not the extent of it, naïve, of course we are!
Woolly says – Holi is festival of colour and marks the farewell of winter and welcoming of summer in Southern Asia. Celebrated with colours, water, sweets and music, people put coloured chalk on each other as a token of love and use water guns or balloons to throw at people, the chalk might be something I could deal with but with my allergy to water I wasn’t so sure about the bombs! The area around our hotel was quiet and it wasn’t until we got to the end of the road and heard the bass pounding out of speakers and the excited shrieks of everyone I realised that it might have been a mistake to make any plans for the day, it was mayhem. Within moments Jo and Zoe had been chalked, I burrowed down into Jo’s jacket in the hope of avoiding to much of the colour fest having realised that it might be an excuse for Jo to wash me! We dodged our way through the streets avoiding most of the water that was being fired and stopping to gawp at the colours that people were becoming, a city of rainbow people seemed to be appearing in front of my eyes.
You couldn’t avoid the chalk as everyone either wiped your face or threw it at you, having made it to the square we sort retreat in a first floor terraced café and sat back to watch.
Woolly says – Watching from the window was a far better bet, the square was swarming with excited youngsters and every few moments another cloud of chalk would descend on them, they danced and screamed in happiness as more and more rainbow people joined the clan. I sat sipping my drink and tried to see the buildings themselves that were covered in bodies, one of the largest of the temples was just a pile of bricks whilst an even bigger one was surrounded by fences, which didn’t stop the crowds, and was purely a brick building with none of it’s former finery. There appeared to be no let up and having taken a deep breath we headed into the crowds once more. There was little choice as to where we went as we were jostled and pushed, Jo and Zoe kept hold of each other while I clung onto Jo, at given points she would jump out of the melee and into a small area of clearness in the masses. Our first such jump left us next to a building covered in tarpaulin with a white building next to it which still looked as though it was falling down, a quick snap and we were back into the crush again.
I had spotted a large statue and set off to get as close as possible to it.
Woolly says – I kept my eyes tightly closed and kept my paws crossed that no chalk was dropping onto my fur from Jo’s face, I felt her stop and took a quick peek at a very large statue of Garuda who appeared to have avoided all of the chalk, I wondered if I might be safer sitting with her! Before I realised the women dove back into the crowds, passing chalk sellers and lots more rainbow folk, I can only assume that a lot of washing will be taking place tomorrow! The worst seemed to be over and we turned into a quieter street, well quieter in that we could now see our feet and weren’t being pushed around, the chalk and water was still flying and as Jo stopped to take a picture of a temple that had two large dragons like animals outside I looked at her and Zoe, they were covered and much in need of a shower and some clean attire, they seemed to agree as we sped up our pace in the hope of getting back to the digs without any further assaults of colour. Finally, we made it with just a few extra tones to add to the mix that was already covering them, I for once was pristinely clean, a rare thing indeed. We sat on the roof terrace of the accommodation and watched the streets and enjoyment continuing below with cries of Happy Holi ringing in our ears, what a festival and what a mess!