A first-person travel vlog transcript of Nate Buchanan and companions celebrating Holi in Vrindavan, India. The group anticipates a flower-based Holi, prepares (coconut oil), walks to a temple, and experiences intense, crowded celebrations where flowers, water, and color are thrown; the temple rush is overwhelming and physically exhausting for participants.
Celebration has begun.
Today we're going out for round two of Holi. As you can see, we had a great time at round one yesterday. So if you haven't seen that video yet, go watch it.
Today we are celebrating Holi in Vrindavan, which is the town that we've been staying in the past two nights. And today's celebration is special because they are supposed to be throwing flowers instead of water and color.
We have a good feeling that it's flowers in addition to water and color, but we'll see. We've already taken a bath in coconut oil, which we did yesterday too. It's supposed to help the color, not stain your skin as much, but not so much. I'm a bit stained.
Still pink.
You don't even want to see under my clothes.
Click a picture of.
Sure.
Nice.
Thank you. Welcome.
That'll be the first of at least 100 selfies that we take today. If it's anything like yesterday, Today's celebration.
Takes place in a temple that's about a mile walk away. But I have a feeling that it's going to begin as soon as we leave these gates.
Let's go.
The selfies have begun. Okay.
There are so many kids on our.
Walk to the temple.
They're all up to no good.
About half of them have water guns. We're trying to avoid the water as long as possible today because that's what makes the color really stick to you. And it's just not spoiling anymore.
But they keep chasing us, trying to steal my hat.
So we literally start walking. And when we still walk the water.
Going, we start running, like, right here.
No.
He got me a little bit.
I think running just makes it worse.
Yeah, I think it's inevitable.
So this guy behind us is totally running a scam. This monkey jumped on Kara's back, took off her sunglasses. And then this guy, you pay him 50 rupees and he throws him a juice drink, and he gives you back the sunglasses. He literally threw the juice drink up to a monkey. The monkey dropped the glasses straight back down. It was worth it just to see the scam in action. Hold up tight, Joe.
Hold up tight to this. Hold up tight to everything.
My looks for the people around. We're getting really close to Joe.
It seems like how this celebration works, they actually keep the temple closed until 4 o'.
Clock.
And at 4 o', clock, everybody rushes in and the madness begins.
Ra.
You look good.
I think I. I think I have.
More color than you right now.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Mar.
It.
Sa.
We were not prepared for this.
I want to get out.
Holy crap.
Don't stop.
Don't stop.
Go, go, go. That is the odd and d and craziest thing I've ever experienced in my whole life. There were times when my feet weren't even on the ground and I was just getting moved by the crowd. That was insane.
I don't want to do that anymore. That was too much. Yesterday's was better.
Temple that was made to hold maybe 50 people. Had a thousand people squeeze into it.
Make it selfish, I would say. I brought. I experienced it once, but once is all you need to experience. What do you think?
Crazy.
Thank you. Thank you.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you. Okay. You probably saw that face that I was not having fun. I'm okay now. That, like, traumatized. It was, like, an expectation thing.
I feel like I just went into battle. This is all sweat.
Like, if you'd have told me.
I would have, like, had that mindset. We had no idea.
I'm not massive timber with a ton.
Of people go in there and dance and stuff. And it was, like, constant. I couldn't even hold the camera up. I couldn't do anything.
We lasted maybe 10 minutes. I kept the camera recording the entire time, and I had no clue if I got any usable footage. I am physically exhausted.
The guys that were standing with us before we got in told us, be careful. There's going to be a lot of pushing. Big, big.
One, two.
It.
