18 TRAVEL
The alternative festival: where to go 1
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HOLI FESTIVAL INDIA
THE NATIONAL PLOUGHING FESTIVAL WEXFORD
A colourful but common sight in India during the celebrations of the Hindu festival
The Championships were host to the World Ploughing Contest in 2011
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oli, the Hindu festival of colours, is an absolute must for any traveller to India. Celebrating the coming of spring, new life and energy, it sees the mass participation of all ages and members of society in this festival. People take to the streets and throw powder paint called “gulal” on anyone and everyone, with the aim of the game being to engulf everyone around you in as much colour as possible. The beauty of Holi, aside from the vast array of colours that cover the people and streets of India on this day, is that constraints of Indian society disappear for this one festival. Men and women openly flirt with one another and everyone is so covered in colour that it is hard to distinguish between castes, or the rich and the poor; during Holi no one cares who you are or where you come from. I saw it with my own eyes: Holi is a liberating festival that allows people to behave outrageously,
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with no strings attached, no ulterior motive – just fun and celebration. The religious connotations are overridden by the sheer messiness on the day. I was in Kolkata for Holi two years ago, and being a foreigner I was sure to be made to feel involved! People weren’t satisfied until every inch of my skin was caked in every colour under the sun. In fact I think I was covered in colour twice over. You were never safe from attack – walking down the street, huge balloons filled with “gulal” mixed together with water dropped from above. Yet I never felt threatened, or targeted unnecessarily. The Indian smile and hospitality is infectious. The whole city was game, and for days afterwards the remnants of colour lingering in the city served as a bright reminder of the summer to come. Holi is particularly big in north India, and is taking place on 8 March this year. Maud Sampson
he National Ploughing Championships take place every year in September. Despite it being thought of as a “The Ultimate Culchie Event”, it attracts up to 180,000 visitors and over 1,000 exhibitors each year over the three days of the event. Not only do competitors travel from all 32 counties, but international challengers are also drawn to it. Last year even hosted the World Ploughing Contest. This event is not just for farmers or families, and there is something for all ages. The biggest farming event in Ireland, and perhaps the biggest farming festival in Europe, the ploughing is essentially a contest for farmers to showcase their skill and precision. Judges adjudicate on the straightness and perfection of the furrows of the plough. The event has grown from strength to strength over the past number of years and is a
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CARNIVAL SPAIN
huge boost to Irish tourism each year. It is always fascinating to watch. I remember the excitement at school when we would get the day off to go to the Ploughing! The three-day event is not solely about ploughing. It is an opportunity to display a wide range of exhibitions, from the latest machinery to craft stalls, fashion shows, food tents, livestock and motor shows. The Ploughing Championships has it all and it is a unique experience. Live radio and television shows are broadcast from it and you can even spot the odd celebrity (Irish celebrity that is!). Last year’s event even had an axemen show and pole climbing races. The 2012 National Ploughing Championships are set to be held in New Ross, Wexford on the 25-27 September. Be sure not to miss it! Rebecca O’ Keeffe
PRZYSTANEK WOODSTOCK POLAND
Flamboyant Carnival celebrations traditonally mark the beginning of Lent in Sitges
Mud and music at the Polish alternative to the Woodstock festival in America
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ne of the strangest and least expected euro-summer weekends came when I agreed to go to a relatively unheard-of festival in Poland – Przystanek Woodstock. It started as a suggestion by a travelling companion, simply because it was free, which suited our budget requirements nicely. On the train over from Berlin we befriended Ben from Berlin, a seven-year veteran attendee, who explained to us that it was a much bigger deal than we had realised. This festival attracts half a million guests for a weekend in August every year, and is hailed as one of the largest open air festivals in Europe. It is by far the largest in Poland. Due to the language barrier and lack of promotion outside of the country, it is almost unheard of. Even the Germans over the border just an hour away by train would be largely clueless to its existence. The journey to the festival was an odd experience. It is assumed that if you are going at all then you must be Polish and know what you are doing. Apart from following the crowd, there were no non-Polish signs leading the way and it was only after walking over an hour that a traffic warden came into view and ushered us in the right direction, down a forest-lined road and into the vast tent-filled space at the end. The main stage, called simply the Big Stage, was stuck by the entrance while the Small Stage was up on a hill in the distance. Our curiosity was roused on this first night before the festival had even begun when we were told that it was, bizarrely, organised by a combination of a huge Christian charity
very year, as Lent approaches, the Spanish-speaking world renounces reality and becomes, instead, the kaleidoscopic backdrop for an excess of colour, noise, feather boas, silver PVC platform boots and sequins: a plethora of all things outrageous, known to us simply as Carnival. This psychedelic week of debauchery and outlandishness is where I happened to find myself last year and the question can’t fail to fall reluctantly from my lips as a result: why can’t we party like the Spanish? Carnival is celebrated across the globe every February, most famously in Rio de Janeiro where it is the biggest popular party on the planet, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Spain’s answer to Rio, however, is Sitges: a small, picturesque town down the coast from Barcelona which, as no one there for Carnival could ignore, claims the coveted title of the gay capital of Europe. Traditionally, Sitges Carnival saw the Catholic community consume all the food and drink that would be disposed off during the impending 40 days of Lent. Today, however, the 28,000-strong population is increased ten-fold by revellers who descend on the town for a week of street music, parades, floats, tapas, fireworks and beach parties. After 40 years under a dictatorship in which the Spanish spirit was suppressed and Carnival banned, it is perhaps now more important than ever. Carnival is, aside from a religious celebration, a brazen declaration of unity, of liberty and of freedom. Social station is scorned, modesty forgotten and blasphemy implicit.
In classic Spanish fashion, the word “programme” was to be followed loosely. Very few people, organizers included, seemed to have the faintest idea what was going on. As a rowdy and inebriated crowd of Where’s Wallies, Mad Hatters, devils, mermaids, superheroes and transvestites began to wonder, two hours on, where the “Debauchery Parade” of over 40 floats had got to, the police could only assume it had “got lost”. Disregarding the vicious circle of hunger pangs, quelled only by consuming yet more sangria followed by unspeakably grim queues for the portaloos, time became immaterial. What did it matter that the parade was currently on the motorway headed for Valencia (although it did appear eventually) when people-watching opportunities were so abundant? So there it is. Having experienced the raucousness that is Carnival, I can no longer deny that the Spanish do know how to party. How could we – or any other nation for that matter – even try to compete? We don’t have the weather, the time or, let’s face it, the disposition. So, as Lent looms this year and I find myself in the desperate pursuit of a habit more feasibly given up than that New Year’s resolution that lasted all of four long days, I can’t help but think back to this time last year. My options are these: ponder a month spent weaned off Dairy Milk and hourly visits to the Daily Mail Online, or dance the conga through winding cobbled streets with 300,000 Spaniards dressed in sequins and spandex bikinis. I know where I’d rather be. The 2012 festival runs from 16-22 February. Cosima Glaister
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(the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity Foundation) as a way of thanking its volunteers each year, and Hare Krishna. There were a few robed men with shaven heads and coloured marks on their foreheads to confirm the latter and various other signs to indicate the former. Aside from this odd combination of organisers, the main personality behind the festival is a man called Jurek, an apparently well-known and slightly megalomaniacal TV and radio host in Poland who had a habit of delivering speeches that could rival Fidel Castro in length. The music was essentially a combination of hard-rock/metal and reggae. Not being a fan of metal, this would have normally been enough to end my hopes for the weekend, but in fact the whole spectacle of the festival with the mixture of reggae created a playful atmosphere that took over. Every day a huge Hare Krishna float would pass through the centre, past all of the stalls and beer venues, with adoring fans dancing in trances behind it. On the other side of the stage an enormous mudbath equipped with several tall hose pipes was set up for the one-hundred-plus people trying to escape the heat of the sun. Dreadlocks and tattoos drifted around the place, hippies and punks seemed to declare peace, and the whole crowd danced together in a dust that hovered over everything for three days. The music was by and large not for me, but the hopes of the organisers to create a festival that had something of the madness and spontaneity of the original Woodstock was definitely realised. This year the festival is being held from 2-4 August. Dominique English TRINITY NEWS