Pushkar: bathing ghats and henna tattoos

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By this point we should have figured it out, traveling in India always takes twice as long as you plan. So seven hours, a short train ride (well, short cuz I slept through it...) and a standing bus ride later we were in Pushkar. The town is setup around a tiny little lake that has 52 bathing ghats around it and is surrounded by three mountains. We both took a cursory look around the hostel and decided we couldn't find a nicer view of the lake or the mountains and checked into our room. Still feeling a little under the weather I took a nap for an hour and a half while Trish walked around our place and explored a little more. Once I got up we both wanted to go up onto the roof for sunset and get a little fresh air, though we ended up staying there all night and having dinner as well.

Thursday morning we got up and headed for the only major attraction in town, one of the world's only Brahma temples. It was a really pretty temple set up on a hill with great views of most of the town. As we walked in a man came up to us saying that he was a student at the temple and he would gladly give us a tour if we wanted (shoes off of course). We followed him around for a while and even got to go back into their living quarters for a view towards the lake out over the entrance of the temple. As we left and collected our shoes we were told we could take the rest of our flowers (given to us when we came in to make an offering to Brahma) down to the Brahma ghat and make an offering and say prayers there. We decided to head over before lunch and were separated into male and female and walked through the steps of prayer and incantations.

Neither of us was too hungry because of the heat but we decided to eat a little something and were about to leave when our waiter came over with a backgammon set and asks if we knew how to play. Trish deferred to me so I said I did. We started playing and I quickly realized that we were playing the most basic version of backgammon possible, though it was still a little fun and kept us in the shade for a while longer. After the game we took a little walk around town, explored some markets and get henna tattoos. Trish got her whole hand and fingers on both sides done but I just got my palm. Back at the room it was time for a little relaxation before dinner. While we were up on the roof though, I was able to sneak a couple photos of the lake and surrounding mountains (there were 'no photography' signs EVERYWHERE on the roof and all over the ghats around town) which I thought came out pretty well. Then a couple girls came out and started taking very obvious pictures of themselves and the lake so I figured the employees didn't really care.

This morning our options were lay out by another hotel's pool for a few hours or bike up to a picturesque spot on one of the mountains. Since we didn't know where the bike shop was but knew what the quality of the bikes would be we decided to just hang out and head back to Ajmer a little early to catch our train. Next stop: Junagadh!

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Photos

brahma temple
one of the only ones in the world

by the mural of brahma and his angry wife
hell hath no fury....