Haridwar festivals · Festivals in Haridwar
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Festivals in Haridwar
Festivals in Haridwar
Haridwar is the site of many religious festivals. Most notably, once every twelve years it is the venue for the Kumbh Mela, humanity's largest festival, which drew a record 70 million in 2003. (The festival rotates between Haridwar and Allahabad, Ujjain and Nashik.) The Ardh Mela, or "half mela", is held every six years. The last Maha Kumbh Mela was in 2010, and the next Ardh Mela will be in 2016.
Other yearly festivals include:
Baisakhi, April.
Kanwar Mela, July. The largest yearly festival, drawing up to 300,000 visitors.
Somwati Amavasya, July. Almost as large as the Kanwar Mela.
Kartik Purnima, held 15 days after Diwali on the first night of the full moon in November.
While the festivals are colorful and fascinating, they also strain the town's limited infrastructure to the breaking point and sometimes beyond. Book rooms and tickets well in advance, and avoid travel by road as the traffic jams can be horrendous.
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Haridwar Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.