Sunset Camel Safari + Rob could have been jailed!?
Trip Start
Jan 28, 2007
1
11
29
Trip End
Mar 31, 2007
Pushkar,
India
Friday, February 16, 2007
Our final 2 nights were in the Jagat Palace Hotel, marble floors in the bedrooms, 4 poster beds, antique furniture, baths in huge ensuites (great for Rob to rig up our clothes rope for washing hahaha). We all met up at 4pm for Javed to give us an orientation walk around the city. It's hippyville with more old white hippy dropouts than Indians. A bit like an Indian Byron Bay.
Pushkar is home to the main Brahma temple in India and one of the most famous Hindu towns. Hindus come to bathe in the lake to wash away their sins so they will go to heaven
01 Pushkar
. There are about 400 temples on the 52 Ghats. The town is also famous for it's annual camel fair held in November.Anyway - it was a fun town to spend time in with tons of shops aimed at the thousands of pilgrims and tourists passing thru. We ended our walk at a restaurant on the ghats and as the sunset everyone converged there to watch with street (hippy drum players) performers, and of course beggars and cows gathering as well.
Rob and I decided on a relatively early night as we wanted to spend time in our beautiful room. We got a couple of hours sleep before the "music started". I forgot to say that we just happened to have arrived in Pushkar during the 3 day festival time for the God Shiva's birthday. So recorded music blared from all the temples until 4am. Luckily it had a monotonous repetitive rhythm to it so that I dozed most of the night (bad luck Rob).
Next day free time until 4pm - yippee - shops here we come (bad luck again Rob). Had a really relaxing day just wandering, shopping, chatting and having chai with the locals (the shop keepers give you tea and chat in the hope you'll stay longer and buy more) - it is enjoyable though
01 The Ghats daytime
. We then needed to do a dash for our hotel to be back in time for our 4pm sunset camel safari!It was so much fun - much more than we expected. We all had our own camel and rode them thru the middle of town. Yep thru the streets and down tiny alleys, looking down (they're very tall!) at all the shops and roadside stalls, being dodged by people, motor bikes, cows and dogs.. etc .. the usual passing street paraphernalia. We were a line of 12 camels plus a camel cart (carrying dozing intrepid tour guide Javed.. slacker). After an hour of fun (although some of the boys were suffering - I think it was a positional thing with their anatomy), we arrived in a desert park out of town where the annual camel festival is held. A billy was put on a little fire and we all enjoyed chai and biscuits as the sun started to set. After an hour break it was back on our camels for a ride back as the sunset. We arrived back in town after dark and it was lovely riding the camels thru the town now all the tiny stalls and shops were lit up. We all voted to get of in town rather than back at the hotel so we call have a last dinner together on a rooftop restaurant overlooking the lake.
Back to our rooms after all agreeing to also have a last breakfast together tomorrow
01 The Ghats at Sunset
. We'd seen a lovely garden restaurant the day before and Barb and Neville had enjoyed lunch there so we all set off for there at 9am. Yes it was lovely - beautifully maintained garden with hedges and clinging bougainvillea everywhere (it's been in every place we've stayed in India). We pushed 2 tables together to enjoy the sunny courtyard. We all ordered tasty sounding dishes - going well you think? Well yes it was until we were all 1/2 way thru our meals and Hamish stirred his marsala coffee only to find a baby cockroach on the end of his spoon...urrhhhh.... (have to laugh really - as long as it doesn't happen to me!!)So that's it - the tour doesn't officially finish until tomorrow in Delhi but Rob and I are leaving early this afternoon and 4 others are also off to other places in India. Hopefully we'll see some of them in the future if they come to Australia. Javed has applied for his visa for a holiday in May to visit friends in Sydney so hope he manages to get down to Melbourne.
We ordered a car to pick us up at 2.30pm to travel from Pushkar to Ajmer where the train departs for Delhi. ... the fun begins.....
As we entered the outskirts of Ajmer there was as road block to collect 2rps per person as a people tax
012 All set to go - in front of our Hotel
. Across the traffic lanes, they just place big gates with wheels on the bottom and slide them back and forwards to let cars thru as they pay. Tourists are usually exempt but for some reason they pegged our car before we even got up to the road block and when we stopped they demanded the 4rps (about 13 cents). Our driver argued (in Indian) but they kept demanding the money. The driver reversed a couple of times to go around the blockade but they kept wheeling it across to block us. Eventually the driver asked us for the 4rps and we refused. (sounds dumb but its just an Indian state of mind you get in - we new it was a corrupt rip off so we weren't going to play) It got pretty heated as we were in the middle of 3 lanes going thru the blockade and we were slowing it down as everyone had to dodge around us to get thru. Again our driver tried to move into the gap to drive thru where the other cars were going but they moved the blockade again and blocked us. Rob and I started yelling abuse at the guys on the road to let us through and then it came to a head when along came 2 cars in a row that had white tourists in the back like us and they let them straight thru! Rob and I started yelling hey hey - look at them - how come them how come!!!??? Which resulted in our car being surrounded by all the little guys on the road (bit of a side show for them) and the big fat boss man all dressed in his fancy white suit.
It was about now that Rob lost it..... as he does ......and exploded without warning hee hee.. quite daunting actually.... hee hee.......anyway - he suddenly threw his car door open which bashed straight into boss guy and 2 of his lackeys - almost knocking them to the ground. Rob was yelling something about bullshit (as he does...
012 Our camel caravan
. hee) and marched across to the barricade. He picked it up and threw it right across the 2 lanes, turning marching back past the men all standing there stunned. He marched past one and poked him in the chest on the way past and said "youre a bad man, bad man" (he'd been the trouble maker out of them all) then started screaming at our driver to "drive thru, drive thru". Our poor little driver!!! .........He didn't speak any english so were not sure what the problem had been but when we arrived at the train station about 10 minutes later we gave him a 50rps tip (about $1.43) incase he had to bribe them on his way back past the blockade when returning to Pushkar.
We laughed thinking how crazy he must think tourists are. We refused to pay the 4rps and risked a big problem and then gave him a 50rp tip 10 minutes later.hahahaa..
I've been writing this on the train for the past few hours. We left Ajmer (at 4pm and will hopefully get to Delhi before 10.30pm as it's an express train. I booked the train tickets from Australia and was given the carriage and seat numbers over the net. All worked really easy which is surprising. We are travelling in the best (dirty vinyl) seats on the train so there are few Indians in our carriage
02 Can you believe this? - my camel resting????
. Mostly groups from Europe as the A$20 ticket is too expensive for Indians. It has been a real laugh because for the A$20 for the 6 1/2 hour journey the meal was also included - and it just keeps coming! So far at 1/2 hour intervals we have been given.. 1st bottle of water each, 2nd individual hot water thermos's with tea, cake and 2 choc éclair lollies (? ha ha), 3rd Soup and bread, 4th another thermos of tea with sandwiches and some sort of Indian figure food (fried surprise)- nice, a cake and 2 more lollies, 5th the main meal came! - rob had to knock it back but Id skipped the soup and bread so I had a shot at it. 3 different hot dishes plus rice plus packet of sliced vegies, plus nan bread Then 6th...yoghurt and for the finale 7th - a bucket of vanilla ice cream! (We've still got an hour to go so what's the bet for an 8th serving of something??hahaha)
We leave Delhi tomorrow on Spicejet airlines at 11.30am to fly to Varanasi for 3 nights before flying onto Nepal. Time sure is flying.
As to now - just have to brace ourselves ready for the onslaught from the auto rickshaw drivers when we arrive at New Delhi railway station.... LET THE BARGAINING BEGIN! hahahaha..... Next onto Varanasi.
