Chris and Jane's Adventures: Pushkar

DAY ONE

We boarded a bus at 9.30 (latest start yet) to head to Pushkar. Chris had done a lot of research on India before we came and picked out Pushkar because it was supposed to be a little different!

And it is...It is a small, majestic town set around a lake. To Indians and Hindu's especially, Pushkar is an extremely sacred town centred around a lake surrounded by temples and Ghats (small pools that are separated from the main lake). One in particular is particularly sacred...Ghandi Ghat - where Ghandi's ashes were spread, but I'll come to that in a second.

On arrival we headed straight down to the main bazaar. This is a long road of shops selling beautiful materials, shawls, bangles, earrings and lovely antiques. After the bazaars of Delhi and Agra this is really something else. For the first time in India we are getting hassled less (which makes shopping possible). Flys swarm the streets and cows with horns four foot long wander along this Main Street. We also saw our first cow attack!

We wandered and wandered.

And wandered....

And then I turned around to find out that Chris was having two holes in his shoes glued, stitched and patched (for £3)!! He now has two big patches on his trainers which makes him like them even more.

One shop down he had a close shave and a face massage (which he loved).

These are the cows that chill all day on the street and sometimes get angry!

Next we went to the Brahmin temple. This was more of an inclusive experience than before with a guy showing us around and explaining the daily rituals that take place at the statues of Vishnu, Ganesh etc. He also gave us both a little red bindi to walk around the streets with.

After that he led us to Ghandi Ghat to deposit the rest of the flowers. On arrival we were greeted by two monks who separated Chris and I and took us off to separate sides of a platform in front of Ghandi Ghat for a chanting ceremony. The purpose of this is to tell us that we wish for the lives of our family and for luck and good Karma for them.....Then to get us to chant the name of many important Hindu gods, then the names of our family, AND THEN say...'how much is your family worth, you give donation'.

I looked at him blankly, I had been warned of this particular con and as such told him my family were priceless. He didn't like that and said 'English give £40, Americans give 40 dollars etc per family member...for the poor'. At this point it is worth saying that the only thing that signified these two con artists as being priests was a small piece of string around their neck. Now maybe I'm suspicious but that doesn't sound right.

Anyway at this point Chris' ritual had finished and I was able to finish my chanting and get away. Between us we gave them 100 rupees which is far more than we would have liked.

I have to say after having our guards up for the conning we had experienced everywhere else Pushkar had been a great chance to let our guards down, just watch out for conning monks...