Holy holy
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2005
1
33
37
Trip End
Dec 10, 2005
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Pushkar,
India
Monday, December 5, 2005
Why is it that in a country that is so religious that they still have the ability to lie and rip you off straight faced??? Yes it has happened again - this time the bus guy sold us a ticket that goes from Udaipur to Agmer then we knew we had to get a local bus from there to Pushkar only 12km over the hill but our bus stopped and chucked us out on the outskirts of Agmer and we then had to argue with the tuktuk drivers who tried to waaaayyy overcharge us to take us to the bus station in Agmer where we thought the bus was heading anyway - aaarrrrrhhhhhhh!
We did make it to Pushkar that night. All Dan wanted was a beer but as it turns out, Pushkar is a Holy City and strictly vegetarian with no beer and no eggs either so out of luck! We got talked into staying at the Shree Guesthouse by a tout on the bus. Its an ok place but a little out of the main action. The big bonus was that it has a TV with movie and sports channels for the small price of 250 rupees.
There is not a lot to do here in Pushkar. It is famous for a huge camel fair which is in November each year. We have spent our time wandering around looking at the markets, sitting by the lake, reading, watching the monkeys fight, waiting for the electricity to come on in the afternoons so we can use the internet and of corse eating.
Holy Holy
The lake is a holy lake and heaps of Indian people come there to bath and wash their clothes their. We found a great restaurant called the Moon Dance where we have been eating. It has got me back onto Indian food again and regained my trust in it. A big achievement after my 2 bouts of Dehli Belly.
Locals here are friendly and im working hard to not think that every Indian person who starts conversation is trying to rip us off or sell us something or get money out of us somehow. Most start by asking "what country you from?" and when we say New Zealand they ususally, 9 times out of 10 will start talking cricket and rave about Stephen Fleming and how much they love the NZ team - We are not so impressed with the NZ team after seeing the hightlights of the recent game against Ozzy where we got a dorking. On the bus to Ajmer we were the main attraction. A group of boys were keen to practice their english and were rembling 100 miles and hour in their Indian accent all the words they knew. We didnt catch all of it but got a few bits on Stephen Fleming and Newtons theory (they were studying science). Before they got off the bus the kindly asked us for our autograph! Funny kids. The young workers at the Moon Dance restaurant were playing cricket in the grass space next to the restaurant and wanted us to join in. We went back today for lunch and to play a bit of cricket but they said their boss was there today and they had to work and could only play cricket when the boss leaves again. Funny funny.
This morning we took the local bus back to Agmer to visit one of Indias most famous Muslim pilgrimage sites Dargah.
Indian Folk Entertainers
This has to go down in one of the weirdist places we have ever been to. I had never been to a Muslim place before so had no idea what to expect. We had to cover our heads before we went inside and take off our shoes. A young boy quickly grabbed us, told us to follow him and rushed us around the site saying "come come". The middle of the shrine is a tomb of a saint and the focal point of the site. Inside was crowded with people all throwing pink and white roses at the tomb. Because we failed to donate large quantities of rupees to the fake guides with fake donation books a man tried to shu us out of their quickly. Iside the site is very clean compared to outside the gates - no cows, rubbish, cow pee and poop, no other animals - only sweet smelling rose petels for us to squish our bare feet into. There were still beggers and lots of children beggers. Most of them however didnt want rupees this time but demanded chocolate instead! Not sure why they assume we have bags full of chocolate but it did remind me that kids are still kids no matter where in the world they are and their upbringing - all kids love chocolate! Im sure their constant rather annoying and demanding scretch of "chocolate chocolate" is not too dissimilar to a NZ kid sitting in the shopping trolly scretching "chocolate chocolate" to mum doing the groceries???Well thats about all from Puskhar. We better head off back to the restaurant to see if their boss has gone so we can play cricket before picking up our bags from the guesthouse and catching what we hope is our final bus trip in India. Next stop is Jaipur, the capital city of Rajastan and rumored to be a shopping paradise!
