Camel Fare

Dehli, well what can u say but pants. Overpriced every1 is trying to make a fast buk out of u and the polution is the worest i have seen. Only good thing was being able to watch some motorcycle racing at a sports bar. So off to jiapur.
There r a lot of rip off merchants here all involved in gems and its serious according to the locals. The Pushker camel fare is only a few days away so a few sights ( u can see why it is called the pink city) and some cobra stroaking with the add of a charmer and we r on our way.
1 thing i noticed traveling around idia was indians spitting red stuff all over the streets. I hadnt realised until reading shanteram that is what u do when u chew on a paan. flavourings, chutneys and betel nuts among other things rapped up in leaf. so i decided to try 1, flavour explosion almost to much it was a massive parcel of sickly sweet mint i tried to spit but ended up spitting of of the contents out onto the floor. met by a few stairs from indians probably woundering what that stupid foreigner was doing.
When we moved onto pushker we caught a bus which rob nearly missed because he had met an american girl and they where rushed to get the things they needed from jiapur. We finally boarded the bus just before it left and 45 minutes into the journey and about 30 km out of the city the road was bloaked right in front of us so we stopped. I decided to get off and have a beedie (indian smoke). A lot of ppl seemed to be really pissed off, a couple of ppl said a truck driver had been beaten his face and his leg where broken, and the road was closed until the police arrived and arrested some1. At that point i heard some noise from behind the que ont the other side of the road and went over to have a look. It was the kind of scene u only see on the news in england the truck stop on the other side of the road was being ransacked. The public where smashing the windows and plundering the goods from inside. At 1 point they pulled a 30 ft metal pole down and started hitting it with sticks like a bunch of rampent 13 year olds on a sugar rush. After the looting the truck stop was set a blaze. I was struck rather hard by how intensly indians had taken the law into there own hands and i can see why ppl say drive away if u r ever involved in an accident here. The police arrived and they stood back and watched dont blame them really. eventually with there sticks in hand they managed to get the road block opened and we drove on too pushker.
The camel fetival was really special 200000 ppl and 50000 camels little disapointed i didnt see any camel races but made up for it by hiring a bike and driving throuugh the mountainious desert terrain. riding on sand is like riding on ice. All booze and meat even eggs is banded during the festival which was disapointing until we took a ride on a camel to a desert camp that served booze so we sat out in the desert watching the sun go down. next few days i spent on my own as communication with rob was rather expensive and it made me realise after meeting loads of random ppl in pushker that this is why so many ppl travel alone in india so i decided to spend a week traveling on my own to see what i had been missing out on. I think rob was a little shocked but u have to do what u want to do, and maybe it would calm the frustrations that where arising from both of us after spending so much time together.
The next morning i woke up and rob had decided to go to goa which was where nadia was going. I thought it was a little crazey but im getting what i wanted out of this so i let him get on with arraging flights and bus tickets. After gettting a hena tattoo and the girl who did it asking if i wanted to go to her tent to see her dance i climbed up to one of the temples on a mountain outside the city and sat and looked down on everything in pushker.
The last night off the festival was mental loads of young indian guys who cant handle there booze drunk under a full moon. loads of girls i spoke to said they had been gropped so we didnt stay out long.
The last day came and i said good bye to rob and nadia and then nearly missed my coach cos it was tucked away down a side street. As i sat on that coach i couldnt help feeling this was the start of my traveling. only time will tell if it is.

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