After a short stroll through Jaipur and my first "real" Indian curry, I spent my first evening & night in India on the balcony of the Krishna Palace Hotel in Jaipur drinking homemade pina coladas with Jacqui & Marc, celebrating the end of my PhD and the beginning of my trip. Now, I usually drink cider(sometimes i change it for beer) but alcohol is not widely available in India, where people really don't drink very much at all. Plus, they make a delicious fresh pineapple juice here that makes your pina colada all the more tasty. The rum was quite hard to find though. We first tried the friendly owner of the internet cafe (who by the way was very happy to practice his impressive French with Marc and myself), but his friend's shop was already closed. In the end, we got lucky at a Hotel Bar, who was happy to sell us a bottle of "Celebration" rum for 300 rupees (about 5 pounds...)
The next morning, we got up to leave Jaipur and get a bus to Ajmer. Getting a bus in India is a true experience (i have in the meantime taken a few more of them), and i will post a separate blog on that soon, when i have more time to write. The whole journey took 4 hours, a large bottle of water (the buses don't have A/C and it's very very hot) but no toilet break, and got us to the Hindu pilgram site of Pushkar, a small spiritual town set around a lake (or rather a pond). Pushkar is a "special" place: it has one of very few Brahma Temples in the world, is strictly vegetarian (that is true) and does neither allow alcohol (that is not quite true) or kissing in public (sad but true). In return, every single coffee shop, restaurant or hotel, happily serves you "special" tea, "special" Lassi, or "special" of the day...let me just say that Pushkar is a very spiritual place, but that we actually managed to uplift our spirits without the addition of any spices other than masala to our tea...
Unfortunately, it seems that Pushkar has in recent years become too much of a tourist destination and the small sleepy town street has been lined with shops selling cheap clothes (the kind you can also get in camden market), India memorablia, and well, "special" stuff.
Since we arrived late though, we decided to give it a second night's stay, and booked ourselves into an Indian cooking class with the multitalented Deepa (she also runs dancing classes, henna painting etc etc etc.). That was fun! we learned how to make a nice Dhal (lentil curry), Kashmiri dam aloo(a delicious potato-based dish), Chapati (bread) and Halwa (sweet). So now i know how it all works (it's easy, you just need the right dose of spices) and i look forward to trying this myself at home (you are all invited!)
In Pushkar, in noticed two other things. Nr 1 is the importance of family-run business in India. For example, Deepa who ran the cooking glass, is the sister of the brother who runs the music school, and also the sister of another brother who runs a hotel, and another one who runs the restaurant, and so on. And i can tell you, this is one rich and happy Indian family.
Nr2 is unfortunately, a bit more depressing, and that is the omnipresence of child labour. The guest house we were staying at (sadly recommended by Lonely Planet) was run by an Indian guy (who always seemed slightly spaced out) and a European woman (who probably got addicited to the "special" lassis, or whatever...). But all the hard work in the guest house (cleaning the rooms, scrubbing the courtyard, serving the guests, doing the laundry etc.) was done by a 10-year old little Indian boy, whose English was perfect, but who obviously didn't go to school...and although he made a pretty happy impression, and is probably far better off than a lot of the kids you see here begging in the streets for pens, money, food...- there was such a sad look in his dark brown eyes ... and at night, the poor guy was sleeping on the floor, in the courtyard of the hotel. Just makes you wanna take him home with you, so that he can just be kid and play games...
ah well, it is no secret that India has high rates of child labour. But it is the first time i have been face to face with it.
