Jodhpur and Holi: Jonny and Katya in the pink

Jodhpur was frantic, exciting, fresh somehow despite the heat. Our car was unable to fit the narrow lanes of the old city, and so we left our driver at the gate, giving him the rest of Saturday and Sunday off and agreeing to meet him on Monday morning. Inside, motorbikes and autorickshaws squeezed past each other, honking and balancing. Small shops lay on either side of the tiny shadowed streets, selling bangles, spices, coloured powders, sugary sweets, snacks, metal trays and tiffin tins, saris and plastic toys. Going at less than a walking pace, our autorickshaw twisted and turned, avoiding other traffic, shaving past people ambling along without looking behind, barely getting past the obligatory cow nestling by a doorway. Seeing his millimetre-exact movement around all the different obstacles was like a work of art, accompanied by the same elegant choreography of all the other vehicles ahead and behind, the honking of horns, the momentary flaring of anger, the shouts and gesticulations. It was fun for me, it was India as I had expected it, the full crush and intensity. Finally we cleared the main blockage, and climbed into a quieter part of town, where we stopped before the gates of our haveli. It was in a marvellous location, and we had the highest room, with views on three sides. This is the view up to the fort of Jodhpur from our little terrace:

That evening, we walked into town. We knew that the next day would be the centrepiece of Holi, one of the most important festivals of the year in North India - the festival of colour, which celebrates the defeat of a female demon, the end of winter, and the beginning of spring. We prepared, along with most of the city, by buying water pistols, and bags of brightly coloured yellow, orange and red powder to throw at others. We then went to the centre of town to try out the omelettes of "the omelette man" Just a stall which had been run for thirty years by the same man, right next to the traffic on the inner arch of one of the gates - but the lonely planet had described the omelettes (for 15 pence) and boiled eggs with seasoning (6 pence) as delicious, and warned, don't try the pale imitations clustered around him. There was little chance of that - above the correct one was a huge sign blazoning "Recommended by Lonely Planet ..." and every guidebook under the sun. We were ushered to plastic stools and offered our laminated menu, as scooters and cars roared around us. We were handed English comments books from a pile of books containing comments all positive in about 12 different languages from Dutch to Korean. Various travellers had sent back their photos of their time at the omelette shop from home, and these were proudly displayed by the omelette man, grinning. A smattering of other Westerners were around us, including a lanky and lank haired character who spoke good Hindi. He oscillated between being mysterious about where he was from (England) and how long he had been in India, informing us of the even cheaper omelettes that could be had elsewhere, and preaching for ten minutes straight on the impending doom of the world through global warming before concluding, with a satisfied smile, 'I'm flying off to the Andaman Islands, it's such a cool place.' The omelette and the eggs were crap, greasy, over-salted, tasteless. It was the ultimate postmodern dining experience, one that exists solely by virtue of the reports and the hype surrounding it, the people turning up to find out. Forget 'Baudrillard n'est pas mort', this was a case of "l'omelette n'a jamais existe". I find it hard to imagine how the 'pale imitations' on either side could have been worse, though admittedly one was an Amulet shop and the other an Omlit shop.

On the way home in the autorickshaw in the late evening, finding that the water pistols were still full of the water the toy shop owner had given us to check they worked, I thought it would be hilarious to use the speed of the rickshaw in the relatively empty street to shoot water over passers by. Katya and I shrieked with laughter as we whizzed past groups of unsuspecting boys gathering for Holi, hearing their cries of frustration as we passed out of striking distance. And then - Katya sprayed water accidentally over some older boys on a motorbike, and they wheeled around to chase us. At first this was fun, as we squirted out our last water at them, but soon they outpaced us and suddenly whole bags of coloured powder were being thrown at us from the sides. We got away briefly, and then they were back. By which time I'd taken out one of our bags of powder and as they came past launched it at them. As I did so, they threw back, taking me unawares, and lodging a great heap of powder on my eyes which had flicked open to throw. I was temporarily blinded, dry powder under my eyelids. I spluttered and worried for my ocular health, at a busy crossing, we were collared by a policeman alongside our enemies and I feared we'd end up in jail. But the policeman let us free quicker, and the autorickshaw driver crawled up to the hotel, with us looking frightened behind us.

As for the next day, the bacchanalian orgy of colour and fighting on the streets and in our hotel, where we'd been assured of a quiet 'Holi playing' with all the family, I shall let the pictures do the talking:

The three photos above are the results of our first battle in the streets, only a skirmish compared to what was to follow.

Others on the surrounding roofs get ready to bombard the streets below.

Five stories below, passing boys quail as Jonny develops his 'water cannon' on the roof.

And next door's family, thinking they are safe in their compound, only fighting amongst each other, receive a good drenching from above.

Below, we start a water fight with another neighbour:

By this time, the real action kicks off in our hotel

And the end result: after a long shower and scrub, this is me that evening:

In any case, we remained horrendously pink for the next 48 hours , with half our clothes irreversibly contaminated, leaving traces on the pillows and towels and floors of the places we passed through. We still have pink nails and elbows and I still have pinkish ears (interesting where it sticks), and Katya has a new hair colour. Plenty more to say about our last 5 days of holiday, but we don't think we'll be at an Internet place until we are back in London, so will finish from there, probably...