Holi Festival of Colours (Rajasthan, India)

Sixteen nights through Rajasthan to the Taj Mahal, guided, on a Royal Enfield, timed to coincide with Holi.

Holi is the reason the dates are fixed. The spring festival is celebrated across northern India with powdered colour thrown in the streets, and in Rajasthan it is as vivid as anywhere; the Jaipur leg of the route falls on it.

Mandawa and Bikaner open the circuit, with Junagarh and its sequence of palaces inside a moated wall. Jaisalmer follows, a walled desert city of honeycombed sandstone, then the Thar Desert riding days. Udaipur comes next, with the City Palace, where Rajput, Mughal, European and Chinese elements sit in one building, the Garden of the Maids and a boat on Lake Pichola. Bijaipur Castle follows along what the operator calls the Happiness Road, through the Vindhyachal forests with waterfalls and lakes, with a three-hundred-and-fifty-year-old castle and an ayurvedic spa. Jaipur comes next with the Amber Fort, the Hawa Mahal and the Jantar Mantar observatory, then Fatehpur Sikri and Agra.

The bike hire is included; the full inclusions were not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. Holi falls in February or March, which is also the best of the Rajasthani riding weather before the heat arrives. Seventeen days makes this the longest Rajasthani circuit the operator runs. Anyone riding on the day itself should expect to be covered in colour, which is the point rather than the hazard, though the schedule sensibly keeps the festival day off the bike. The riding throughout is flat and sealed, so no off-road experience is needed.