Pushkar

Wake up at the crack of dawn to catch my train from Udaipur to Ajmer. It is a pleasant 6 hour journey. I get to Ajmer and need to get a bus to Pushkar, when I meet to Australian lesbians and I share a taxi with them for the 20 min mountainous drive.

What can I say about Pushkar, but hippy central. It looks like there are some people who came here years ago and decided to become holy men and smoke lots of weed. That's all the holy men do is get high and beg for money.

I am staying at Raghav Resort which is the worst place I have stayed so far. I have to share the bathroom with the family that own the place, which is fine, but the bathroom is what I have coined 'The death chamber'. I have never seen so many mosquitoes in one little confined space in all of my life. If i'm going to get malaria, it's going to be from 'the death chamber'. Let's just say I have learnt how to have a shower pretty speedy gonzalez!


Pushkar is famous for its lake, which is ringed by five hundred whitewashed temples, connected to the water by 52 ghats. Hindus visit Pushkar year-round to take a dip in the waters of the lake. I took a walk to the the lake, when a local Brahmin priest asks me to worship at the lake; this is to make Pushkar Puja. This involves the repetition of prayers for family and some of my close friends (big God shout out to you lucky few!) while scattering rose petals into the lake, and then being asked for a donation (yes, I had to touch the water, I'm probably going to get ill now!). On completion of the puja, a red thick thread is tied around your wrist. The locals have labelled this the "Pushkar passport", as this simple token means you'll no longer attract pushy priests and can wander the ghats unhindered. So I swan around the ghats and everytime someone stops me, I just show them by tatty peice of string on my wrist, like I'm now part of the secret society and they let me pass.


After the completion of the puja I sit with the preist for what must have been two hours talking about religion and family. It felt really spiritual and calming. A few of the local kids who's family are at the lake to perform puja kept coming up to me and giving me hugs which was very beatutiful.



Pilgrims at the lake



Priest who I have been hanging out with for the last few days. Loveliest man!