Pushkar, India (Post #72)
Michele here….Mike is next to me working on creating maps of the places we have been in each country.
We are in Pushkar, India right now and have been here for 3 days. The journey here was another interesting ride in India. This picture illustrates one obvious difference between the roads here and in the U.S.
The good thing about Pushkar is that there is little to do here other than visit temples and watch the spiritual activities happening at the one of the holiest lakes in India, the Pushkar Lake. To quote our guidebook, “Pushkar is an important pilgrimage center and you’ll see plenty of sadhus (spiritual men), as well as countless chilled-out travelers experimenting variously with spirituality, bhang, and facial hair.” (And in case you are wondering, bhang is marijuana and bhang lassis are yogurt drinks made with quite a bit of marijuana.) Since this is a holy place, alcohol, meat, and eggs are banned in this small town.
We had not made reservations so when we arrived in Pushkar we didn’t have any where to stay. Our driver recommended we go to a new place. We drove up to a huge mansion that looked like a house, not a hotel. I immediately said that it would be too expensive. Much of the mansion was made out of marble and it had a breathtaking view over fields with hills and temples in the background. This type of place would easily be $150/night in the U.S. As it turned out, they were desperate for customers since they recently opened. We really lucked out. By bargained with the manager, we got the price down to 600 rupees ($13)/night.
Since we’ve been in Pushkar, we have been simply soaking up the atmosphere. Last night we watched the sun set near one of the many bathing ghats (where Hindus wash away their sins). Today we climbed to the top of a hill to visit a temple and enjoy the views of Pushkar and the surrounding desert and fields. The picture below shows the sunset at the ghat. In the far background you can see a temple at the top of the hill. That’s the one we visited today.
Tomorrow night we take a red eye flight from Delhi, India to Bangkok, Thailand. So next time we blog, we’ll be doing it from Thailand. Bye!
We love blog comments but if for some reason you want to say something to us more directly, please email us — mikeandmichelertw at hotmail dot com (appropriate punctuation changes will be required of course).
Tags: Category #19: India
Michele Harmon
Hello Michele & Mike,
really a nice Blog of your travel, a lot of work, we are impressed.
It was nice meeting you and we wanted to let you know our e-mail, just in case you pass by Switzerland (prob. not during this trip) or wanted to know how we are doing…:
(email address removed by Mike to protect privacy)
Take care and good luck,
Lis & Stefan
Hi Michele and Mike,
Iam so sorry you guys had to go through so much pain with your travel reservations in India. Having born and lived there for 23 years of my life, i can understand what exactly you are going through. Trust me, its not just the foreingners these people try to cheat on. I’ve had similar, though not so bad, “experiences” when I visited northern parts of India(iam from south). But, its no different in south either. The moment they realize you are not a local, they try all their nasty lil tricks on you. You gotta be really careful .Once i lost my luggage while travelling by train and trains are the worst means of transport during night. You can lose your possesions, and sick perverted men trying to “misbehave” with you when you are travelling all alone. I have been through so much of all these BS all the 23 yrs of my life there. 90% men are jerks, perverts. Women are definitely better, but are too timid to do anything. India will remain probably the most uncivilized nation in the world as long as the Govt has no proper laws to punish and try these kinda people.
Iam living in Dallas,TX, for the last 7 yrs. Iam so relieved there’s no eve teasing or any other sort of misconduct towards women in USA. It is soooo liberating to walk on the streets and not to worry someone’s gonna come and misbehave with you and get away with it. I LOVE USA for that!!!!! In India some men behave like women are some sort of public property. JERKS!!!! No manners!! No conscience in these men. No respect for others. Its not only with foreigners that they tend to behave like that. It’s just the “Indian mentality”. That’s it.
So, what iam trying to say here is, pls dont take it too badly. Just let go of this one bad experience and enjoy the rest of your travel.
Thanx,
lakshmi.
Hello,
Just read your entry on Pushkar and I will be heading there in a day. What is the name of the place you stayed in? I’m also on a RTW for 7 mo. now.
Thanks, Ricia