Pushy pushers in Pushkar

Pushkar was a little bit of a letdown. We'd hoped to see some of the infamous Camel Festival - or at least the build upto it. Instead, we only caught the very first day of setting it up before leaving. You could tell that this was a big event though and that we were going to miss out. The set-up looked a bit like Glastonbury or V Festival the Thursday before it starts (except with not a drop of rain in site and a load of camels instead of festival goers!).















As soon as we arrived we looked for a nice place to stay. We came across a place in the Lonely Planet that claimed to have great views. It did, but the rest of the room didn't live upto much. So V parked herself and had a drink whilst I trekked around Pushkar looking for something better. Instead I found a cheap place 150Rs a night which was clean and seemed friendly enough. However, before going back to it following picking up our bags - the guy at the nice view guest house was offering me drugs instead of the room that he had...a definite no-no and a sign that we were right to find somewhere else. This (as it turned out) seemed to be the extent of what Pushkar had to offer! Groups of stoned / high locals and travellers all over! This was really surprising considering Pushkar's reputation as a major holy city...

It did have it's good and funny points though. We found a lovely cafe overlooking the lake which we spent a couple of afternoon's in...

We also learnt how to play the Tabla. We thought it was just a bit of banging on bongo's but turned out you have to be quite skilled at banging it very cack-handedly and using just a couple of your fingers...The notes were strange as well, this was our song...

"Dah - Din - Din - Nah, Dah - Din - Din - Nah, Nah - Nin - Nin - Nah, Dah - Nin - Nin - Nah" I think the guy saw us coming!!! Or just thought he'd never been able to get any decent rhythm out of any westerners before..so why try with us!


We had a very funny night in a rooftop Israeli cafe sampling great food and the infamous "Special Lassi" which included a little something extra other than yoghurt milk and bananas. To say we got the giggles and had to leave would have been an understatement...to say things were a little bit odd when we got back to our room would have been another understatement and to say the next day was like waking up with a huge hangover would be the final and worst understatement! A great day to try and get our arses to Jaipur!