The last time I played Holi and got dunked in so much color was a long time ago, in the North Indian neighborhood of my tiny hometown while growing up. This Saturday I relived this experience in the streets of Saigon with 6,853 other people in the widely popular Color Me Run event!! It was incredibly refreshing and fun to be like kids for a day and enjoy creating a mess 😀 Though the heat was a bit too much in the afternoon and most of us resorted to walking after an initial run, it was a great evening with friends doing a healthy activity for a change 😉
My first surprise for the evening was the neighborhood itself. Ho Chi Minh City has so many districts ( I was thinking 14 but Wiki says 24 :O ), I live in District 1, the expat hub and the center of the city and the event took place in District 7, one of the newer districts. And wow! It looked like a totally new city. The streets were very well laid out and whole look of the place was sophisticated. I will definitely go back there, atleast for the huge mall that caught my eye 😉 The event was quite well organized considering the scale; with color stations set up at every 1 km checkpoint. There were teams throwing heaps of color on us at every station! Everyone had a bit (or lot) of Pink, Blue, Yellow, Green & Purple and the atmosphere was definitely festive, which was further pumped up by some good music played before and after the run.
Here are some lovely pictures shared by the team on their facebook page. The reason why I am not sharing the pictures that I took, comes right after you enjoy these colorful snaps.
The Purple Station ❤
A splash of colors..isn’t it heavenly to look at?
Undoubtedly the cutest participant of the evening.. ❤
So, coming to my tragic story (You should have seen that coming given the title of the post). There I was having a great time at the end of the course and eagerly waiting for the Kelly Rowland concert (I don’t really know who she is but its supposedly good music and lots of dancing- so hell yeah). And poof goes my phone. My precious iPhone. 😦 It was safely in my pocket and within a span of 5 minutes and a crowded queue, it disappeared! So there it is, my first experience with the dark side of Vietnam and hopefully it will be my last. This doesn’t tarnish the image of the country in any way; my positive experiences have been way too many. But my heart is heavy with grief for all the pictures that weren’t backed up 😦 For all those moments captured at the right time, the video of my first Zip lining experience, etc., etc., So everyone out there, don’t take your phone for granted and do backup regularly!
Oh I forgot, I had so many pictures of food that I someday wanted to write a blog post on and all that is gone too. Now I have to go back and eat them all again. Hmmm.. it’s not so bad after all 🙂
Anyways, the incident didn’t take away the fun that I had in the event. Signing off with a crazy picture and see you all with more updates real soooon, promise 😀
Me with Ines who was the one of the poor victims of my color frenzy 😉
TALES OF MY JOURNEYS ACROSS OCEANS 
Holi in HCMC? Well, there you go! great colours in your photos what’s your trick? (other than photographing colourful things)
Hi Andrew, thanks for your comment 🙂 It wasn’t Holi per say but similar concept with the addition of a 5 km run. And as I had mentioned, the pictures aren’t mine (except the last one) I did a little bit of editing to enhance color but the credits go to the organizers’ team 🙂
ahhh sorry i read it but had people asking me 100 questions as i was reading here! So obviously I didnt take everything in! i notice everyone is enhancing the colours these days! Photoshop?
haha no worries 🙂 And no, not photoshop but Picasa mainly.. I like things bright and colorful and sometimes my point and shoot camera doesn’t capture it well so have resorted to such editing!
Awesome idea!! If only singapore can have one…haha…I did hear of pillow fighting in arab st but I think yours is much more fun!! Although it is too bad about your phone…it’s so painful to have lost all the precious photos!! Looks like you will have to fill it all back up with new photos…:)
Haha pillow fighting sounds so interesting as well 😀 Yess, I’ve started working on that part 😉
Shaaa! Someone just posted that there is colormerun in Singapore coming up.. you should check it out 🙂
Really?? Ok!! Thanks for the heads up…:)
My daughter did this type of run last year. What fun. So sorry to hear about your phone and good reminder to us all about backing it up.
Oh yes Sue it definitely was a lot of fun; Knowing you a little bit, I’m surprised you didn’t do it with your daughter 😉 And yeah, sometimes we take things for granted, especially our phones and sometimes people too 😉
Except for the awful phone incident, sounds like a fabulous way to spend the day.
Wow that’s so interesting… Seems like u had lots of fun… The pics are amazing
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I’ve heard a lot of cases of cell phone snatching in Vietnam. Nonetheless, looks like fun. There’s color run event coming up in Singapore as well. Should be fun.
Ya, unfortunately it’s quite prevalent and I don’t see much measures to curb it as well 😦 Oh ya, that will be epic! Have loads of fun 🙂
Sorry to hear about your phone. From some of the things I’ve been reading this week, you’re lucky it was just a pickpocketing, as thieves seem to be getting more and more brazen, with an increasing number of violent muggings happening. Maybe the same amount, but more reports – not sure. Anyway, glad you could keep a good attitude!
Thanks for your comment Adam, yes sadly even I have been hearing about such incidents regularly! And as you said fortunately for me, it was taken without my knowledge and I wasn’t hurt physically which would have been worse. So I’m counting my blessings 🙂 Btw, your blog looks fantastic !