Pushkar
Pushkar is about 300 kilometres east of jaisalmer which is about 11 hours on one of indias scooby doo buses – we took a sleeper bus which left jaisalmer at 5.30 and was due to arrive in pushkar at about 4 in the morning or so. Tis really a horrible time to arrive anywhere esp as we had no accommodation booked but onwards and upwards. The trip for the most part was pretty uneventful, the seats weren’t exactly conducive to sleeping. I did manage to drop into something resembling a slumber after several hours only to be woken up by the lack of rattling – we had either
a) careered off the road into a gorge and I was on my way to the pearly gates.
b) turned onto a smooth road which stopped the bus from sounding like it was falling apart
or c) had turned up at our destination.
Now option a is unlikely, b is just ridiculous so it must have been c, but a quick glance outside showed that it was not pushkar but the neighbouring town called ajmer. The driver was at this stage running up and down the bus waking up all the intended travellers to pushkar. I kinda kopped on pretty quickly what was going on. I asked the driver (who needless to say hadn’t a word of english) why we were not in pushkar. He starts shouting last stop, last stop. I looked down at my watch and it was 3.30. Pushkar was still 15 kilometres away – not a flat 15 km either as the road between the two towns goes over what the locals called snake mountain so I wasn’t exactly willing to find out why the mountain got its name by foot.
I asked the bus driver why we were not being brought the whole way, that we had paid to go to pushkar not 9/10s of the way to pushkar. He kept shouting , he even tried to grab some peoples bags and take them off the bus. I was having none of this, the first thing I sought out was an indian passenger who spoke good english so he could translate for me. The driver and some of his cohorts were saying that we would have to cross the road and get a 4.30 government bus to pushkar as the private bus was too big to go to there. At this stage the rest of the guys going to pushkar had realised what was happening, there were 7 in total including myself and shari. Some of the fellas were really getting pissed, on the point of violence. It was shocking form on the drivers part, pure laziness more than anything. He was pretty desperate not to drop us all the way, he even offered to pay for our fare on the public bus – I did consider this offer but it was still a load of crap. Then a lightbulb appeared over my head, I grabbed the driver and ran across to the public bus stand to see the ‘mini bus’ that was to bring us the rest of the way. I should’ve seen it coming really – when the station master pointed at the minibus it was just as big if not bigger than the one we had travelled this far on. I pointed to the driver and said quite firmly – ‘ You are dropping us in Fckn Pushkar ‘ he didn’t need a translator for that, so before we knew it we were back on the bus and on the way over snake mountain with phil the hero.
The next issue was accommodation, it was 4.30 by the time we got there. luckily there were a few hardy souls up – a couple were manning a chai stop so all 7 of us ordered a cup of that sweet goodness and nestled around the little campfire set up to ward away the coldness of the desert night. We eventually mustered the energy to find a place – I followed the crowd to a place called raja towers – it was a pretty modest affair and for what we got and what else in the town that was available it was grossly overpriced, but by home standards it cost about the same as the munchies you get when rent out a dvd.
Alot of people rave on about pushkar, a chilled out paradise, a haven for travellers to recharge their batteries. It is a holy town with a ban on all meat products including eggs, no alcohol allowed within the city limits etc etc but it wasn’t because of this that I didn’t warm to the town, as it happens I have had about 5 beers since christmas day (not that I am counting or anything). I think the people the town attracts turned both me and shari off the place – there was an incredible amount of hippies or people there who just wanted to smoke their brains out. The locals have obviously adapted the town to cater for this influx so every hotel has its rooftop opened up for them to sample the local bhang lassi which is a narcotic yoghurt drink which should be illegal but the local cops (more about those lovely men later) seemingly turn a bit of a blind eye to it. The main street in the town more resembles liffey valley shopping centre than an actual religious town that would normally be off any interest – I lost count the number of times we encountered a peace loving hippie argue out really loudly with one of the local shop owners. Despite all these misgivings I had a pretty good time in pushkar. We stayed there for 4 nights plus another night (I will explain in my next entry all about that extra night), we did meet some nice locals like simon – a young lad who works in one of the hotels, he was so funny – he only got paid 2000 rupees a year from his boss from working every weekend. Tried to work it out what he earned on an hourly basis, figured it was bout 15 cents european. We spent most of our time going from rooftop to rooftop talking away about all kinds of everything, if we didn’t get on aswell as we did I’m sure pushkar would’ve lasted 1 maybe 2 nights at maximum.
On the 4th day we got up early, paid our bill and headed for the town they call bundi in south rajasthan. It sounded more like our cup of tea. We grabbed a private bus from just outside the bus stand which would take us to ajmer where we would get a link bus to bundi. It was on the bus to bundi that I noticed that I as down a bag, yes my black carry on bag with my passport, glasses, credit cards, camera, mp3 player – you name it!! All gone… cue what was probably my most interesting day in india yet. Coming soon…….
Tags: India, India, pushkar, Rajasthan
Phil Gill
Bad news about the bag but these things happen. It could be worse I was at Dad’s This is Your Life on Friday night turns out you were adopted after all !!!
Hope Dermo has better luck finding the Taj Mahal than he had with your hotel in Liverpool..
COME ON!!!! TELL US!!!!
Cliffhangers galore on the blog these days… quit it… i suffer enough suspense watching Lost every week 🙂