I can only liken Diwali night in Pushkar to something close to Guy Fawks Night on acid - cracker mania without any standard precautions. Walking through the streets dodging bungers, with fuses so short they almost always blow up in your hand, I was hit twice by larger ones that spun off in the wrong direction. It did not suprise me to hear the next day that 25 people had died in Jaipur that night from a home made cracker gone wrong. Still, it was an exciting night for Pushkar and we purchased a massive firework and gave it to the son of a man who had invited us to his home/shrine earlier that evening, and watched him let it off in the alley way. Four days later, our ears are still recovering from 48 hours of BANG BANG BANG and we were very glad to leave it behind on Thursday afternoon as we set of on a camel safari into "the desert"/small sand dunes surrounding Pushkar.
My camel Rocky was particularilly hungry, so when I wasn't trailing far behind Matt's camel we were bolting onwards trying to catch up the distance lost with each of Rocky's extra meals. That night we slept on blankets on the sand, under the stars and ate chapati and curry, cooked on the camp fire. I helped roll the Chapati. We ate chicken and drank Whiskey (both illegal in Pushkar). The Koreans we camped with paid extra for the luxury. We have also found a few places in Pushkar that serve beer ("cold coffee"). They pay off the police for this privelidge, but still it is a very discreet agreement they have with backpackers, that we don't mention it to the locals and it usually involves sitting in an area where no one can see you. For me it's not really worth the possibility of offending the entire town for a not very cold beer and I think now I will stick to Chai and Mango tea for the next week until we leave Pushkar. So, last night I taught 3 Koreans and 4 Indians how to "do the hokey pokey" and learnt how to play the quite painful game of "Kong Kong Chill Bang". We also saw a baby goat just born whilst passing on the camels, still covered in the afterbirth. I have just booked a class for tomorrow to do some silver jewellery making and later this afternoon when it cools down a bit we are going to treck up a nearby mountain to one of the temples. We are looking forward to the festivities of the Camel Fair starting on the 5th as we are running out of things to do here until then. I am on my seventh novel since leaving home 5 weeks ago! LOVE XO
