Pushkar

We boarded our train to Ajmer, where we thought we would travel local style.  Our first encounter was a woman eating her breakfast in our seat so while waiting for her to finish I thought I would brave the wc, I will leave most of this to your imagination, but mainly just a hole in the floor straight onto the track below.  We made ourselves comfortable and began our 2 hour journey.  On the way we were easy prey for some of the other passengers trying to make a quick buck, begging, putting red dots on our heads, and singing local songs, which was good entertainment in itself just not right in my ear as they chose to stand next to me with the drum, which they banged decidedly hard, especially the more we pretended to ignore them as we knew they were gonna be asking for money anytime soon and we had a lack of small change with us, in the end we payed them a bit just to go away so we could have some peace and quiet, then we got the kids which we just placated with some chewing gum, works every time!!

We arrived at Ajmer and got a rickshaw to the bus station where we boarded the bus for Pushkar, which is about a half hour ride and cost about 20p.  On the way we did our good deed for the day and handed our crisps and water to the poor hungry, thirsty kids sitting next to us who were crying, this seemed to stop the tears until the bus grinded to a halt and the small boy went flying face down from his seat onto the floor and started screaming, but luckily he seemed ok ish :(

Pushkar is a holy place where one of the only brahma temples in the world is situated.  It was described in the lonely planet as a place where God had dropped a lotus flower on the Earth and this is where it landed!!  Hmmm  maybe we have just been spoilt, although once settled in we realised it was a place of character, and the people here are very friendly and welcoming.  Apart from its temples and ghats surrounding the lake, which I believe is manmade and not as big as we expected, Pushkar is famous for its camel fair which happens every October/November, so unfortunately we will just miss it, but it is when people bring about 50,000 camels from around India, mainly Rajasthan, to converge on this small town.  There are also horses, snake charmers, entertainers and tourists in droves, we have seen pictures in tour shops and it looks like a good time!

The Hotel Navaratan Palace, was certainly no palace, described as having a gorgeous pool, and tortoises in beautiful gardens, although our lonely planet was published in 2009, the pool was cloudy and cold, with some fungal growths floating on it, we were certainly not risking that, maybe the tortoises were at the bottom of it where they would never be found, because they were nowhere else to be seen either.  We did however have monkeys in the garden eating what they could find of the plants and they were quite entertaining, although we were told not to get too close because they bite!!  Our room was very basic and shabby, but had the essentials, although we could not really complain for £3.50 a night each!!!

After exploring around the area, which did not take long, we decided to start playing the year long Uno rally, as we could not remember any card games ha ha and sat in the gardens to learn the rules again, we will tally up our scores and see who wins at the end of our trip :)  We went for dinner, it is all vegetarian here, and then we booked a sundown camel safari with dinner for late tomorrow afternoon.

This morning we decided to go up the hill to a temple for a walk, there was some nice views from here but the other temple is much higher on another hill, so we made a pact to get up early tomorrow and climb it, the views from there are supposed to be awesome!!

We chilled out for a while before setting out on the sunset camel safari.  My guide was Babu and he spoke very good english so it was great talking to him.  The camel was called Jotu and was also very friendly.  I have not had much contact with camels before and was really surprised by how laid back they are and how much character they have.  They really seemed to have a great relationship with their handlers who genuinely cared for them, it was quite touching!  Nicola had never ridden a camel before, hers was called Vishna and was a different breed to mine and was quite naughty when we set off, but she soon told him who was boss ha ha!  After a couple of hours we stopped in the sand dunes for dinner and to watch the sun go down.  The camels were unloaded and were thoroughly enjoying having a good roll around in the sand.  Nicola and I went exploring and to take pictures of the sunset while our guides cooked our evening meal for us which consisted of Chapati, Dal and some spicy dish and rice served with lemon tea, just what we needed after a long day.  We then settled down to eat while star gazing at the night sky trying to work out the various zodiac signs.

After dinner we packed up and got ready for our night ride.  We were not far from the village so the boys decided we might like to feel the need for speed!!  We warily agreed to give it a go and off we went racing our camels down the road!!  Was a very bumpy ride back, but so much fun and quite exhilarating, we could not stop laughing all the way, whilst trying to stay on, it got easier as we relaxed into it.  Like riding a horse a bit, same, same but different as the locals would say :)

Next morning we awoke at 6am so we could climb up to the temple before the sun came up.  It was a tough walk but we managed it in about 45 minutes, which we were happy with.  Got some nice pictures on the way up and rested at the top while watching the monkeys playing and throwing each other over the top of the ledge.  One monkey got quite excited and attacked Nicola because he thought she had some food, but it was jus a camera, not very appetising!!  It was chased away and we decided enough monkey business for one day, and headed back down for some breakfast and a shower.

After relaxing for another day, being harassed by more monkeys, Nicola choking on her food at dinner, watching a funeral procession we were ready to face the fast, furious pace again, so we packed up and headed to Agra!!!