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Published: December 31st 2009
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The drive to Pushkar from Jaipur was the first time that the scenery really began to change into dry, dusty terrain with sparse vegetation and rocky hills - exactly what you would expect from Rajasthan (the Desert State). The drive was relatively good, though there were the obligatory stretches of terrible bumpy road (the kind of road you would only ever consider navigating in a four wheel drive in Australia).
Pushkar is famous for its holy lake which apparently appeared when the Hindu God Brahma dropped a lotus flower, so after checking in to our hotel we went for a walk to see the lake. However, as we were walking we passed a pizza place which received amazing reviews in Lonely Planet so stopped for a bite to eat. After scoffing down our delicious wood fired pizzas and hummus we continued on to the lake.
Before we arrived in Pushkar we had heard from a few people that the lake was dry, turns out they weren’t kidding! It was completely dry except for a small puddle one corner which I reckon is probably man made (specifically Indian man made…perhaps the new favourite pee corner?). Needless to say our afternoon
of people watching by the lake was somewhat disrupted by the whole lack of water thing so we ended up walking through the town. The town is quite touristy, both with Indian and Westerners, so the main street is lined on both sides with souvenir shops, restaurants, bookshops and restaurants. It’s quite a chilled out town so our walk was really quite pleasant. We eventually ended up at the Brahma Temple, which is one of the few in the world as his wife got mad when he took another wife and vowed that he wouldn’t be worshipped anywhere else. Unfortunately for me the temple was covered in monkeys, and not just the normal smallish brown monkeys but HUGE (think the size of a sumo wrestler) white/grey ones with black faces and impossibly long tails…yuck. Luckily for me it’s never too hard to convince Scott not to go into a temple so we made our escape and headed out for dinner.
We spent the next morning reading books in the sunshine and relaxing before heading out for lunch at one of the many rooftop restaurants in the town. We got into the whole Pushkar thing and ordered Israeli food. We
think that a lot of young Israeli’s must come and spend a few years doing a whole lot of nothing in Pushkar to avoid their military service as every single restaurant seems to have a huge selection of Israeli food on the menu and there is a Synagogue in town!
That afternoon we were picked up from our hotel by two camels and set off for the sunset camel ride which was included in our package with our driver. We assumed this would be another gimmick like the elephant ride in Jaipur however it actually turned out to be one of the highlights of Rajasthan. Once we climbed up onto our camels we set off on an hour long walk past villages and farms to an isolated spot in the desert to watch the sun set. My camel seemed particularly please to have me hop off his back; as soon as I climbed off he rolled over on his side and lay there looking completely exhausted and then went to sleep. In fact he slept the entire time we were watching the sun set! I don’t think I’ll ever live this down; Scott now regularly comments about how much
of a fatty I am and how I almost killed a camel… The sunset was absolutely beautiful; if you ever go to Pushkar do a sunset camel trek!! (And if you’re female, listen to Lonely Planet’s advice and take a sports bra!! Bumpy is an understatement!!)
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