pushkar

Pushkar was an entirely different story, it’s the holiest city in all of rajasthan and was really small and cute. touristy for sure…but wasn’t bad for a change…it just meant better food, more nice people to meet, and great places to stay. At the center of pushkar is a small holy lake surrounded by 52 ghats…temples of worship…all built by different kings. It was wonderful to go down to the steps of the water and hang out with all the local pilgrims who would come down by the hundreds to bath in the lakes and make pujas. There were plenty of monkeys, cows, pigeons, and dogs in the mix too so it made for some great visuals…however the rules of the holy lake are no pictures allowed, so I followed the tradition and took zero…I think it was the right decision.
Anyways, we meet up with our friend celine from the amla farm and pretty much just kicked it for a week…didn’t do much sight seeing or photography…just chilled out flying kites on the roof, played lots of music, ate tons of falafels, and meet some other sweet kids from Switzerland, Israel, Australia, and Portugal.
The vibe of the city was great…everyone was super friendly and laid back and the town was so small that you could walk everywhere. It made a huge difference not having rickshaws around and all the noise and pollution and hassle that comes with big Indian cities. The city was filled with music, especially around sunset, when each temple would take turns rocking it for the gods. One night a cow snuck into the hotel lobby and was eating all the plants…chhagan killed us with this whole sneaky cow routine…his English was pretty bad…but he had mastered a sense of humor about it and was a very funny man like…secret cow, always sneaky, waiting, always hungry, plotting, patient cow, clever, always sneaky. That night we came up with name of our gypsy traveling band…COW HEADSTAND. For all this and more…pushkar is my favorite city thus far in India…and I recommend to anyone coming for a visit. we stayed about a week and then said goodbye to our dear brother chhagan who we sent back to his family in jaisalmer as we headed onward to delhi to meet noemi who was flying in from Budapest as planned. code