Pushkar.. not

Our next town was Pushkar – but this turned out to be our Indian hump town.  Pushkar is a holy town on a lake with temples and lots of sadhus (holy men in saffron robes).  The whole town is alcohol free and there are signs up everywhere to say there will be no eating meat or eggs, no drinking and no public affection between men and women.  Men hold hands in India all the time – it’s really common – but definately no touching with the women!

Anyway, we were tired and we just couldn’t be bothered.  We stayed in our hotel room in the air con (when there wasn’t power cuts) and only ventured out at night to get dinner.  Sightseeing  cannot be done on a continuous basis- it becomes just plain boring after a while.  Spending time just being in a place amongst the people is far more interesting, which is why we were starting to get tired on this driving trip and realised it probably hadn’t been the best choice for us. 

On the other hand, India was also our “hump” country.  We’d been travelling for over4 months and we were a bit tired.  India is not an easy destination – you have to be on your toes and it can be exhausting just getting from one place to another.  Add on the whole terrorism thing and we’ve forgiven ourselves by deciding that the car journey was probably the best of the options available.

Anyway, you won’t see any Pushkar photos because I didn’t take any!  The most exciting thing that happened was when we were having dinner one night.  A lot of the restaurants are on rooftops and there was a sudden rumble which sounded like thunder.  Nah- can’t be…  Suddenly, the wind picked up and a gust ripped through the restaurant sending the ceiling fans into a crazy rocking spin and sand blasted us.  We quickly decided to get moving because we had a 15 minute walk back to the hotel. 

As we stepped out of the restaurant, another big gust of wind hit us, this time together with some giant raindrops and the power went out.  Power cuts are just a part of India – everywhere we went, the power went out at least once a day (in Pushkar it was most of the day!)

We had to walk back through the winding narrow streets, lined with vendors and the usual cows and dogs – in the dark.  Fun!  Added to this, the wind was blasting us with sand and it was so strong that the little kids were flat out staying upright.

We were accosted by 2 bicycle rickshaw drivers, so we jumped in and rode the last 500 metres.  The hotel was in darkness of course, but we made it – we had sand in our eyes, ears, mouths and inside our clothes.  It was the best fun we’d had in days!