Tripped out Holi weekend, overwhelming craziness, multi colour fiesta, peace, fun laughter & religion all rolled into one orgasm called Pushkar...the place ;)
26th February 2010 to 01 March 2010.
26/02/10 - Board Delhi - Ajmer, Rajasthan Shatabdi express, the air conditioned chair car & the fastest train on the network, leaves delhi at 6am (confirm) and reaches Ajmer at 1pm(confirm). It's the closest station to Pushkar, you can take a bus or a cab, we took the latter to save time and it was 3 of us, the fare came to 150 per head, and that too because he had to take a longer route because of a jammed up highway due to an accident or such.
Arrived in Pushkar at 1430, the closest place to where we were left was the Pink Floyd Cafe, the most disastrous place in town! we went there with high hopes of a totally spaced out place to stay, i've been hearing about it for years and years, but if you're a lonely planet traveler then I highly recommend staying far away from this idiotic place. The food is terrible, the decor is moronic and the staff, well, forget it. It's perfect for the delhi / bombay "we are cool" wannabe hippy but far cry from it type people who are so full of themselves that they end up losing out on life. we had a terrible lunch, most of which we left, some we choked on, really choked on and that was the end of that "must-try" experience. One highlight though was this german shepherd tied up on the ground floor, the friendliest, scrawniest doggy ever! we left for better prospects.
After walking the entire stretch all the way to the Brahma temple we reached a place called Bharatpur palace, room 1 is recommended because it's surrounded on three sides by the lake, which turned out to be dry and that pretty much would have been the one and only reason to have stayed there.
flip flip flip and the book says Hotel white house, 3/4 of the way back from where we came...crossed Hotel Paramount Palace, the staircase up looked like an adventure, which i'm sure the owners realised and perhaps aren't too confident of their rooms either which explains the banner below that reads, Hotel Paramount Palace, Top then Hope!
I really wanted to check out 'milkman' described as a terrifically welcoming family house with cheeky frescoes in the cosy but clean rooms...and even a lush lawn on the rooftop. we couldn't find it and instead found white house, which turned out to be overlooking milkman. anyway, the room was perfect, so was the family running it, extremely chatty and welcoming and we paid 500 for a night between the three. The room had beds which seemed to be on stilts, rising atleast 3.5 feet off the ground. a sofa and table, a small balcony overlooking the narrow lane and only access, 3 differently coloured lights to suit your mood, 2 prints, one of an African baby sucking on his mothers breast(!), a miniature bathroom (to be fair with my height a lot of things become miniature by default), small but clean!
we trudged up very very steep 1ft steps to the rooftop cafe where Hemant, the owners son, told us about his life, which includes a short stint in USA working in a restaurant before coming back to India, home, family, culture and belonging to more than nothing. All this as he brewed the complimentary mango tea, you must must have a cup, it sounds terrible but it's tasty enough to melt even the most skeptic person.
Kamlesh, who prefers to be called Deepak because that's his younger brothers name who has brought him luck since he popped out of his mother is, or claims to be the most experienced and 'world famous' masseuse in Pushkar. He charges INR 300 for an hour of bliss, he's excellent and comes with an herbal paste he concocts himself everyday. There's a tiny massage room on the ground floor of the white house so no need to go anywhere either, massage and jump into a hot bath!...So Kamlesh aka Deepak, has many MANY books that are full of page-long recommendations which he makes you write in as soon as he's done with his work but what i want to tell you about is one of his stories about how this Swedish lady extended her stay for 2 months and got 60 massages from him because it helped her get cured of something i'm not aware of and is now taking him back with her to teach and train in Sweden, or was it Spain, this is the sad part about writing a blog long after coming back.
Evening we roamed around in the market, ate ate ate and by nightfall landed up at the town center, which is no more than 4 narrow roads merging into an opening surrounded by cafes and shops. now this place is the most fascinating in all of Pushkar. It changes avatars by the hour, morning newspaper sorting, afternoon vegetable market and an evening hang out that continues late into the night. It's the place that sees the coming together of everyone to celebrate everything. Chetan Chai wallah has strategically placed his tea stall right there and offers stools to tourists he approves of, namely foreigners and the one odd authentic traveler. He did brush us off the first day, day 2 we simply took a stool each and he later warmed up to tell us about how he gets into trouble because pretend-travelers chat up the foreigners who later land up in trouble and the blame comes back to his shop and he becomes responsible, fair enough.
Out of nowhere the locals organized a couple of drummers and sticks and there was a frenzy of gharba/dandiya bang in the middle of the crossroad. Cameras clicked, some joined in, some stayed far away for fear of being hit by one of the hypnotically swung sticks and people 'flying' in all directions loosely resembling a circle.
You had to be there to feel the pulse, it was fascinating!
We walked around aimlessly looking for a place to eat, me hungry as ever spotted YOP, that's what was painted on a handcart selling marathi paranthas called Thali Peet, a favourite of mine...the onwer himself unclear of what YOP meant but it was something he said that the Israeli's could relate to, there are a lot of Israeli's in Pushkar, the way i put it, Pushkar's population is 50% Israeli, 25% local, 10%European & US, 5% other parts of the world, 5% religion driven families etc. and the rest well just people like me.
Definitely have a YOP roll if you spot one of the carts!
We continued to the Sunset Cafe, which seemed to be in a more 'developed' part of Pushkar and would have been nice had the lake been full. Apparently the lake was dried up for cleaning though i can't imagine how they would fill up a dry 'lake' in the middle of the desert! *They have segregated some water in 2-3 artificial ponds for the religion driven visitors to do their traditional plunge bath and pollute with flowers / money and plastic amongst other things.
Dinner was so-so. we crossed the river onto the other side and walked all the way back to the town center to hang till things settled down, the energy there was enough to excite the most jaded of people and everyone seemed to be enjoying watching the impromptu dance routine, which i forgot to ask someone as to whether it was a daily thing they put of for the tourists or a two nights before Holi kinda thing.
A poster back in our room had warned us of a 10pm deadline which we chose to totally ignore and even told the owners about our future disregard for their rules as we didn't A. have much time in Pushkar anywa, B. we're on holiday, C. the whole town was dancing away (well we didn't know that then)...the deadline was because the whole place is run by the family who sleeps there and would have to wake up to open the door. They did so anyway around 1am when we did finally get back and thankfully didn't create a scene about it either. spent another hour on the rooftop chatting and taking photos.
more on another day, have much to do and visiting Rishikesh again coming weekend!
