Spirit of India Day 10 Pushkar

Monday April 18^th

This morning I woke up early this morning and finished updating the blog for Peter. We were underway on the bus by 9:00 and heading to Pushkar. The trip was about 5 hours. A lot of it was along a dual carriageway and there were signs posted periodically saying “Lane Driving – Safe Driving”. They are trying to encourage them to stay in their own lane and only use the same number of lanes as there are lines.

Pushkar is a very religious town with lots of pilgrims coming here and lots of old hippies living here. We were warned to watch out for people trying to sell us drugs. When we got to Pushkar we checked in and had lunch, before boarding the bus back into town for an orientation walk. Sameer introduced us to a Hindu holy man who led us on a twenty minute walk through the main street of this 25000 people town to the ghats on the lake. He took us in groups of 6 down to the edge of the lake and performed a religious ceremony with us to rid us of our sins, and to provide us with good luck and safe travels. We were anointed with a red dot on our forehead and we had to thrown some rose petals into the water. Then he tied a string bracelet around our wrists and told us we now had our Pushkar passport! Apparently if you don't have the dot and the bracelet locals will try to sell you one or the other. This way we won't be bothered.

After the ceremony I wondered the streets taking photos. This is a photographers dream. The people are friendly, more relaxed, less intent on selling you something (although it is a tourist town and their are lots of shops), and the colours and faces and scenes are to die for. I took well over a hundred photos and am going to publish my own National Geographic edition. I was trying to capture moments and sneak pictures without people seeing me. Really fun to do.

Finally got to where I was supposed to meet the group, at the Sunset Bar, where we sat and had a non-alcoholic drink and watched the sun set over the lake. Then back to the hotel for dinner and a couple of drinks. There was a conference and party going on at our resort. They had the place all decorated with lights, video screens and they had a live band and a dj! Luckily it ended at 11:00.

I showed some of my Africa and Kilimanjaro photos to Ian and Stephanie, and then off to bed.