Pushkar

Pushkar Lake Bathing Ghats

After the Rat Temple we drove to Pushkar, home of one of India’s sacred lakes and known for it’s annual Camel Fare which brings in throngs of tourists and camel traders and sounds quite chaotic and colorful (it’s in November so we won’t be seeing it this time..) it was a hot, dusty day (not that it seems to bother the guys in the red Rajasthani hats) and we wandered down the narrow market alleyways, eventually making it to the far side of the lake, overlooking the famous bathing Ghats. They looked somewhat similar to how I remember the ones in Varanasi, gleaming white across the lake with colorful, sari clad women. There are strict signs posted all over Pushkar requesting that tourists respect the locals and not photograph women bathing, not smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol (Pushkar is a dry town) nor eat meat (Pushkar is also a 100% vegetarian town).

Rajasthani Men in Pushkar

We popped into a small restaurant for a Veggie buffet lunch which was fairly boring but edible - the pic of the restaurant is included just so you can get an idea of what basic restaurants are like here.

After lunch we wandered around the alleys and the main bazaar street, everyone selling lots of Rajasthani textiles, knick-knacks and abundant quantities of chillums and pipes (not the kind used for smoking tobacco). The town has an obvious "over-touristed" air about it with pushy shop vendors, lots of restaurants and shops claiming "Recommended by Lonely Planet!!!" many with signs in Hebrew, Korean and Japanese and plenty of disaffected, twenty-something, pierced, tattooed and dread-locked "hippies" hanging out.

Pushkar Grain Shop

When we got back to the car, Nandu was somewhat surprised having expected us to be gone longer like usual. We told him that we weren’t so thrilled with Pushkar and he mentioned something about previously having customers who were "young tourists from Israel come for smoking". We scooted off for the three hour drive to Jaipur and happily checked into the Trident where we enjoyed an excellent dinner, cold beer and a wonderful bed. Tomorrow is the last day of our Rajasthan adventure and we head back to Delhi just in time to fly off the next day to Bhutan. We are really excited about going to Bhutan and the cooler climate (although, with everything that has gone wrong with the planning of the Bhutan visit so far, I am still convinced that there will be a coup or some such thing that keeps us from finally making it there…)