Holi Day. The Holi Day holiday might just be one of the greatest inventions of mankind. The main idea: in the name of celebrating good's victory over evil, you hold a day-long, nation-wide waterfight, throw in a few bright colors, and have a heck of a time. This was a highlight of my time in Nepal, leaving me with a desire to return annually for this water-color fest. 
The water flights are waged from strategic positions on walk-out housetops and balconies. Lucky are those whose housetop is 5 stories high while their neighbor's is only 3. No one is excluded... men, women, children, the elderly... they all take position to give and receive fire. The top picture shows a small child with his water gun, one of the least effective of weapons. The second pictures shows the culprit of a water balloon that came whizzing by as I tried to take pictures. She had quite an arm...
The agony of a direct hit. We were in the process of filling water balloons while trying to dodge artillery fire coming from about 5 different directions. There's something about wearing a white t-shirt and being the only white guy in the neighborhood that says, "Hit Me!"
The ground littered with broken balloons around me, I returned fire on a father and two children who were giving a volley of balloons up from a 3rd story rooftop toward my 4th story position. My military instincts told me that the bucket approach would work quite nicely, as it did.
Part of the event is smearing colors all over your friends faces and in their hair. I'm not sure why, but with my back already stained by a direct hit from a color-laced water balloon, I figured I might as well add some other colors.
In the process of standing in front of the house putting colors on each other faces, we were surprised by a neighbor's sneak attack with a bucket full of water. I chased after him with another bucket, only to run into an ambush where they threw red powder on my already soaked face. It was all in good fun, enough fun that we took a picture together while getting pelted by more water balloons. 
After several hours of fun in our community, we decided to walk around the city for a few hours and see what we could find. Nepalis lined their walk-out rooftops along the streets, waiting for passersby like us to dump water on. We did our best to fire back, but struggled from our lower and more vulnerable position. Jokingly, ever direct hit was replied to with, "Thank you, thank you! Happy Holi!"
We stopped by this friend's house (the lady in the middle) and when she stepped out the door, my Nepali friends nailed her with the green powder. She in turn decorated us with some green. Before we left we made sure we hit her dog with some green powder as well. 
The End.This actually wasn't the end. After literally having a "red neck" for a couple days, the powder/paint finally wore and washed off. The t-shirt, once bright white, was unsalvageable.
