We rocked up at the bus station and found a bus to Ajmer, which is the main town near Pushkar. We managed to find a super posh super fast express that only took 3 hours J a nice introduction for Michele to Indian driving. We changed in Ajmer to a much more local bus (full to the brim with people) that was going to Pushkar and after a short trip we found ourselves in the middle of baggy trouser mecca. The main street was end to end full of crusty fashion tailors and jewellery shops with people asking us to buy things all the time (or wanting to sell “special” Lassi/tea/cake). We arrived at the hotel which was (thankfully) very cheap, this was the cheapest town we’d been in so far. The hotel was quite nice with a nice green courtyard with vines covering the walls and rooftop terrace. We went out in search of something to eat and we walked past a local guy sitting in front of a huge pan of hot oil frying something that looked a bit like jalebi but wasn’t. intrigued we stopped to ask him what is was, it was called sweet chapatti – so of course we had to try it. It was a like a very buttery, deep fried pancake soaked in sweet sugar syrup. It was VERY yummy J. After that quick excursion we decided it was too hot outside and we retreated to the hotel to chill out in the cool shade of the courtyard. When the sun was less strong we ventured back out again to book a cooking lesson for the next day and to visit the famous temple. Since no bags were allowed inside the temple, Marc was happy to volunteer to stay outside with our stuff as he had seen one temple too many already, so Jacqui and Michele went inside to offer flowers to get a blessing for their friends and families. Originally Pushkar was a temple town and with the influx of travellers the locals had decided to issue some “rules” to dictate how people can behave. For example, the entire town was strictly vegetarian (much to Marc’s dismay), not even eggs were allowed. Alcohol was not allowed (but you could find it if you asked around), displays of affection in public prohibited and also shoes were not allowed within 10m of the lake (and no photos of people near the water either). In the evening we retired to the rooftop terrace in the hotel and polished off the rest of our rum on the quiet!
After a hot night another hot morning followed. After a lie in, and a late breakfast we decided to chill out in the courtyard for a while since it was hot again outside. We found an uno game and we played several rounds along with and English couple and the help of the young Indian boy who was serving in the hotel.
A bit later that evening the three of us set off for our cooking lesson. We were squeezed onto motorbikes (three per bike!) and shuttled off the other end of town in a nice garden of a house. There in a little room us and two others spent the next three hours slaving over a hot stove learning some Indian cooking secrets. In this lesson we learnt how to make real Indian daal, parantha, dam aloo (a saucy potato dish) and plain halva dessert.
We all enjoyed the class and we are looking forward to sharing our new found cooking skills with everyone back home. We walked back from the cooking class slowly, over a little bridge, our stomach’s full of yummy Indian food. Marc and Michele were experimenting with different camera settings whilst taking photos of the town at night.
That night we decided to do a bit of exercise, so we got up early in the morning so that we could walk up the small but steep hill to the temple just behind the hotel before it got too hot. On the way up we finally saw a peacock up close (and heard several more). At the top the hill it was nice and fresh and we had a nice view of the town, also there was still some mist sitting over the town giving it a mystical appearance.
Our next stop after Pushkar was Bundi, a town about 6 hours by bus south of Pushkar. We grabbed another tourist like bus to Ajmer which unfortunately had a flat tyre on the way, but we did not despair because the driver took off the wheel and pushed it into a tyre shop that we had just stopped in front of and got the tyre patched up and back on the bus within 30 mins. After finally reaching the bus station we found the bus the bundi and we were instructed to tie our bags to the roof (which we were a little worried about!). After we lugged our bags up there and tied them on with every bit of string we had we got on the bus.
Jacqui fought for a row of seats so that the three of us could sit together, Marc was sitting in between Michele and Jacqui. A woman in the row in front turned around and was looking at Marc, he said something to her and she laughed (but she didn’t understand English) and that the beginning of the next 4 hours….
The woman in front was travelling with one of her sons and one of her daughters. Her son spoke a little English and ended up being the translator (although he didn’t speak a lot either!). They were from a small town called Tonk (which was apparently very beautiful – of course). Right from the beginning the woman was trying to show Marc her daughter, except her daughter was very shy and kept pulling her scarf further down over her face. Then they started showing Marc a picture of the girl that the son had on his mobile phone. They were really proud of her.
After some difficulty we managed to explain that Michele was a friend and that Jacqui was Marc’s girlfriend She looked a bit disappointed to find out Marc was not single. She really liked Marc’s dark hair and beard and offered him some betelnut to chew. He was too polite and took some and started chewing, he found it pretty disgusting (very sweet and had a strong flavour and made the mouth salivate a lot). After about 5 mins he managed to discretely spit it out and threw it out the window.
Next the woman started teaching Marc a drinking song which went something like “toom baraba toom”. However, singing was not enough and she insisted that Marc do the actions as well (which was that of swinging a bottle around the head and taking a huge swig). Marc was a very good sport and soon other people on the bus were looking around at the entertaining situation. In turn, they wanted to hear a French song, Michele suggested “Lac du Conemarra” a really cheesy super French song. As Michele and Marc were singing Jacqui was clapping and they were getting faster and faster, we realised that the whole bus were looking and laughing at us. It was extremely funny! An hour before we arrived at their stop they invited us to come to their village in what we suspect was an attempt to realise their plan…that they would get Marc drunk with the toom baraba toom song and then marry him off to their daughter before he knew what was going on! We took their address and politely said thank you very much but that we didn’t have a lot of time left in India (which was true) and that we wouldn’t be able to come to their village. This went on for some time more and we were started to get tired from the constant harassment. At one point Marc started to pretend to be asleep (even though in this bus sleep was not possible) so that they would start to leave him alone. A while after we arrived at the stop where they were disembarking and we all said our goodbyes with plenty of smiles and the three of us continued our journey in peace for another hour or so.
