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PUSHKAR FAIR held each November at the time of the Kartik Purnima full moon, Pushkar Camel Fair is one of India’s most highly-rated travel experiences, a spectacle on an epic scale, attracting thousands of camels, horses and cattle and visited by over 400,000 people over a period of around fourteen days.

For visitors it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness the colour, spectacle and carnival of one of the last great traditional melas, which brings livestock, farmers, traders and villagers from all over Rajasthan.

Hola Mahalla or simply Hola is a Sikh festival that takes place on the first of the lunar month of Chet which usually falls in March. This, by a tradition established by Guru Gobind Singh, follows the Hindu festival of Holi by one day; Hola is the masculine form of the feminine sounding Holi.

The word "Mohalla" is derived from the Arabic root hal (alighting, descending) and is a Punjabi word that implies an organized procession in the form of an army column. But unlike Holi, when people playfully sprinkle colored powder, dry or mixed in water, on each other, the Guru made Hola Mohalla an occasion for the Sikhs to demonstrate their martial skills in simulated battles.

Together the phrase "Hola Mohalla" stands for "mock fight". During this festival, processions are organised in the form of army type columns accompanied by war-drums, standard-bearers, who proceed to a given spot or move in state from one gurdwara to another. The custom originated in the time of Guru Gobind Singh who held the first such mock fight event at Anandpur in February 1701.

The spellbinding Spiti Valley, located in Himachal Pradesh in India, is often proclaimed by those who see it to be world within a world. With an average height of around 12,500 feet above sea level, it consists of stark high-altitude alpine land. This is scattered with small villages and monasteries, and enclosed by soaring peaks crowned with snow.

Spiti is bordered by Ladakh in the north, Tibet to the east, Kinnaur to the south east, and the Kullu Valley to the south. It shares the same religion as Tibet -- Tibetan Buddhism.