A very uneventful bus trip today from Jaipur to Pushkar. In Pushkar we are staying in a luxury tent city resort. How to explain this place. It is a massive vegetable growing plantation with greenhouses all over the place, growing cauliflowers among other things. Then there are these tents. Sally and I have our own tent but really it’s a large room with a wooden floor, proper beds, wifi and air con so very comfortable.
We arrived, had lunch, an hour or so break before heading out again. We have had an attempt at getting alcohol but it is a holy city so no luck at all. We can of course buy it at the hotel for an arm and a leg (literally e.g. $75 for a bottle of Jacobs Creek)…so I guess its beer for me!!
Then we set off in the bus again to the only Brahma Temple in India where the faithful come from everywhere to worship. A pretty ugly temple if you ask me but very holy. Nearby is a lake that is also holy and people get blessed. We had a blessing ceremony where I was given good fortune and a red dot on my forehead…I had to chant something, I’m not quite sure what and petals got thrown in the water. Then we all paid a tip for the pleasure…but I asked for good luck for my children, in my superstitious way. Now I have another band around my wrist that I cant take off or I’ll lose my good luck!!!
From there the fun started…we walked to the camel area of the town and had to get into a camel cart. I was totally convinced I couldn’t get up into these bloody carts but by now my NBFs won’t let me get out of it and up I got (with a helping hand). Then the trick is not to get totally bounced out of the cart altogether. There were 4 of us in our cart and I had to really struggle not to be unceremoniously extracted. Up a sandy track we went to a sort of nomadic village (looked very bedouin-ish) to a point to see the sunset on a sand dune. People trying to sells stuff at the point and kids running after the cart to try and get what they could out of us. It was a real bone shaker but I was very proud of myself for doing it, and like the jeep last night, it was fun.
We came back, had our beer on one of the verandahs and then went and had a meal. Sally had gone for dinner earlier. I’ve just had a lovely solar shower in my ‘tent’ and am ready for bed.