Pushkar, a pilgrim's place

Wandering through this lively, tourist village with its crowded bazaar and many temples. Climb the hill behind Pushkar to visit the Savitri temple (early in the morning).

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Pushkar Palace Hotel, near India's most sacred lake, is a perfect place to stay the night(s). For about Rs. 100 you can have an delicious dinner in the hotel. At night we sit in the cosy garden with a view over the lake and the many ghats.

India's most sacred lake is believed to mark the spot where a lotus thrown by Brahma, landed. Pushkar has become a pilgrim's place. All around the lake, ghats (steps) lead down to the water to enable pilgrims to bathe. You can hear noisy religious celebrations the whole night long in this once so famous hippy town so you may need your ear plugs here.

We wander through this lively, tourist village with its crowded bazaar and many temples. One of the most striking sights is that of the saffron clad sadhus - religious, mendicant, holy men - seeking gifts of food and money to support themselves in the final stage of life. Most of them have given up material possessions, carrying only a strip of cloth, a staff, prayer beads, a water pot and a begging bowl. Some of them are accompanied by cows. And what's so special about a cow when you see plenty of them everywhere you go? Well, these cows have five legs; one on their back or one just beside their tail, and I must say it looks weird... And than there's the annoying story about the brahmins (priests) who want tourists to go with them to offer flowers and coconuts to the holy lake. They start to ask all kinds of silly questions and finally all they want is money or a donation. I had to stay calm all the time so that I didn't push the man into the lake. And if that isn't enough already I also meet a begging badly physically handicapped woman on my way back to the hotel. It can be very distressing.

Pushkar is also very famous for its Pushkar Fair, India's greatest cattle and camel fair. So we have to go on a trip with a herd of camels. Around 4:00 pm we enter the semi-desert, wobbling on the back of a camel to see the sunset. We sit in the desert waiting for the sun to disappear, but it's a little bit cloudy. When it's dark we race back to town. And because it's full moon we've a good sight of what's in front of us. I finish third! I've done a much better job riding a camel in Jordan and Tunis than this time because I wounded up on my ass. After the camel adventure, we go to the rooftop restaurant Rainbow for dinner. They serve excellent vegetarian lasagna! The rest of the night, we enjoy the beauty of the full moon in the garden of our hotel, relaxing under the big palm trees. In the background we hear a mantra, chant for meditation, sang by a brahmin.

After breakfast in the garden I decide to go shopping. In Pushkar, you can buy lots of souvenirs like, for example, beautiful handcraft paper with nice Indian motifs, postcards, hippy clothes and many music tapes or cd's. There's also a little internet shop from where you can send or receive e-mails. You pay only Rs. 3 per minute to prepare your e-mails! So if you can type fast this is the cheapest way to communicate with your friends at home. In the evening all the e-mails will be sent together. If you wish to receive a reply the next day you pay about Rs. 25 per incoming e-mail. I've contacted my friends and family at home and it did work perfectly. And it's much cheaper than sending a fax or phoning home. An excellent service!