Pushkar – Cows,
camels, monkeys, pigs, monkey-pig, dogs, squirrels, and their droppings
We get to
Pushkar in the afternoon, after a 2 hour taxi ride. The taxi driver takes us to
a very nice hotel. We’re on a roll here, guys! TV, AC, nice staff, OK
restaurant, clean and quiet.
Our first
impression of Pushkar is that “this place is a bloody rubbish tip, get me out
of here”! But like everything else in India, you just need to take a bit of
time to appreciate your blessings. Pushkar is a holy town in Rajasthan, famous
for the holy lake, the alleged only Brahma Temple in the world and, of course,
for the bazaar (shopping here is awesome and don’t get me started on the cheap
prices). Non vegetarian food and alcohol are not allowed in Pushkar, making it
yet another BYO town. We’ve been so prepared, I’m really proud of us. Also,
cigarette smoking is not allowed in the town, however, pot can be freely bought and consumed throughout the place. Gotta love
this country, just don’t try to understand it!!
So, we walk
around Pushkar, taking in the sacred lake, the masses of pilgrims, the lovely
old buildings, the colourful people in scarves and turbans. We find a nice
restaurant with buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner. Good honest food, not as
boring vegetarian as most other places. Come on people, vegetarian does NOT
mean boring, especially in India. You can do it! We also do quite a lot of shopping
in Pushkar, pashminas, silk scarves, clothes, leather (camel leather). And yet another package is on its way to Brasil.
There are all
sorts of animals in Pushkar – cows, camels, monkeys, pigs, “monkey-pig”, dogs,
squirrels, and their droppings are everywhere. Sometimes, by the time you get to
your restaurant, you don’t feel hungry anymore. If you check out the photos, you will see the
amazing photo of the mama pig adopting and breastfeeding a little monkey.
Heartwarming stuff! (hence the monkey-pig).
All the street
dogs, mostly the cutest puppies on the streets, break our hearts. We want to
take them all home (if we had a home). Some so skinny and sick, and still they
just want to play. Child labour is also everywhere. Some of the kids seem so
smart, they would love to be at school, but WTF, they need to help out their
families. Survival is the name of the game (like in most of India) and it seems like that’s just the way it goes,
hopefully not for ever. Yet, something else hard to get used to. We also notice
that there were almost no women in the workforce, wherever we go in India (same as Middle East actually).
We just deal with men in shops, hotels (that explains why your hotel room is never properly cleaned), restaurants,… We are kind of getting used to not seeing
many sisters working around here unless they are doing hard work, like paving
and construction work. Go figure! I’m almost giving up. I’ve seen some
complex cultures, communities and religions but India definitely takes the
cake.
We decided to
stay in Pushkar for a week, for three main reasons: 1. it’s chilled enough with
as much or as little as you want to do, 2. we finalised our Rajasthan shopping
(also will be hitting the shops again in Delhi, can’t wait) and don’t need to go to Jaipur
anymore (still trying to avoid big cities when possible) and 3. Paul’s got a
nasty flu, hasn’t been his fabulous self and really needs to recover a bit
before yet another 28 hours train journey to the Punjab, this time to Amritsar
to see the Sikh Golden Temple. Or so we
think!
