Camel Festival and HOLY Lake
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2007
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Trip End
Dec 2007
Pushkar,
India
Friday, November 23, 2007
there were people everywhere - VERY colourful. We heard that there were over 20,000 people in Pushkar for the annual Camel Fair. We arrived on the second last day of the festival (it ends on the fullmoon)
We stayed at the LakeView Hotel which gave us a great spot to watch the bathing on the ghats of the lake. it is a holy lake and part of the festival is a pilgramage to bathe in the waters and say a blessing there. there are many "priests" out on the street who gave us flowers and tried to have us go down to the lake and show "respect" by throwing them in. we reluctantly followed them and when they tried to sit Anita down and pay for a blessing for the family we were out of there. so sorry if we brought "bad karma" to the family and that we didnt show the respect
the streets in pushkar
. it just was a totally uncomfortable situation that we wanted to avoid. Regardless of the encounter, the lake was a spectacular site to see - CONSTANTLY busy with people bathing even through the night (LOUD)We spent most of the day walking through the streets and the fairgrounds just taking it all in! so much stimulation. we saw TONS of camels, horses, cattle and there are those huge (wizard of oz) monkeys everywhere. Anita pulled monica away from a basket with a cobra in it as the snake charmer laughed but she couldnt help her from almost being run down by a camel and cart. We also saw a cow running through a narrow street - the Pushkar running of the bulls hee hee.
The fairgrounds had EVERYTHING for sale from camel gear to plastic bowls to swords to clothes to all kinds of food. There were also death -defying ferris wheels and carni rides and freak shows. music and yelling on microphones everywhere! and again people taking photos of/with us all the time! we are going to miss our celebrity status when we go home!
We were disappointed that we missed one of the events during the week - the MOUSTACHE competition!!! but we think that we saw the winner if not a finalist walking on the street with his Princess Leia moustache on his cheeks! haha
we met up with Meg and Cathy and their friend Shane again for a nice people watching dinner on a roof top before heading to the cultural show in the evening. We were herded into our pen on the fairground. literally a wooden pen marked Tourists at the front of the arena
the streets2
. right next to the "media" pen. the cops made sure that we stayed within the pen and that no one Indian came in. hilarious and akward at the same time.We watched a bunch of great cultural dances and listened to GREAT music.Every dance or performance went for a marathon session of at least 15 minutes per song. a little lengthy...we left before it was all over (might have had something to do with the strobe light flashing in our eyes for the whole 2 hours). The Desert Symphony was our favourite.
We laughed a the chaos on the stage - an announcer who everyone talked to while she was speaking, ("Right now, soon we will be starting the performance") people also were walking on the stage during some of the dances - hilarious entertainment. Another chuckle we had was all the men dressed as women who were dancing on stage. they were very talented...we just didnt get it.
We sort of slept while a man sold something right under our window. he yelled out the same thing over and over again ALL night. because it was the full moon there were pilgrams bathing all night out side our window.
Ate a nutella and banana pancake and sipped our chai at a street cafe while it seemed like EVERYONE was staring at us. thousands of people walking in the street watched anita then walked by and double took back at monica. it was funny and awkward at the same time.one lady stopped and put her bag down on a chair and stared at monica with a smile before calling her family over...another lady walking down the street turned in front of us and laughed "aaaa"
we took a public bus back to Ajmer to catch another to Jaipur.
Monica chatted the WHOLE way (3 hours) with a 13 year old boy named Tunil. He was very interested to know everything about us , see photos, see canadian money and read her book... or just stare under a man's armpit (standing in the aisle) He even told Monica that he would come to her guesthouse and show her around the town! haha his whole family was in on the conversation and we took a photo and gave them some chocolate.
