Pushkar and Blessed Quiet

After the 'big city' of Jaipur we were looking forward to the quiet of the country. Pushkar has a population of about 15000 and is centred, according to the guide book, around  a lake that has ghats at the lake's edge, it apparently being a holy place with over 400 temples.

Well there is a lake and there are ghats at the lake's edge, but its more of a boating lake rather than a a lake in the wider sense. Nevertheless it was quiet. There was no mad streets with cars, bikes and busses jockeying for position, no furious leaning on horns and no pedestrians ducking for cover. There were just a few streets with mainly pedestrain traffic, the odd bicycle or car, and an infrequent cow. The people were nice and the food was great even though no meat, or eggs are allowed in the town. Its alcohol free too but I didn't care, I was just happy to be in a calm place. Apparently there is an annual festival when the population swells to over 400,000. I have no idea how this is accomodated in such a small place.

I did upset a local as apparently you have to take your shoes off 30 feet from the lakeside. I didn't know & he didn't explain so that was a bit ugly, but otherwise the whole experience was a good one.  Even the storekeepers seem to be straight., Kathy had been looking for some cushion covers for ages but everyone wanted to start with a price in the stratosphere and bargain from there. In Pushkar we asked the price, the guy gave a price that we thought was reasonable, and which was a fraction of the stratosphere prices we had been quoted up to that point, and we bought the covers.

Pushkar Lake and Ghats

Pushkar Lake

Pushkar Town House

Veranda at the Pushkar Palace Hotel

Pushkar Lake from The Pushkar Palace Hotel

Our driver, Haroon, had dropped us in town as our hotel was on the outskirts. We told him we would call him when we wanted him to pick us up. Unfortunately neither Kathy nor I had thought to actually check which of us had a mobile in our possession. I thought she & I both had one, she thought I  had one and in reality neither of us had one. So when  the time came, after our very nice vegetarian dinner, to call for Haroon  the awful realisation dawned that we couldn't contact him and had no idea where the hotel was or what it was called, other than 'Paradise' was in the name. As I've touched on this place is a bit 'rural' so no taxis and no auto rickshaws were around so we took the only option and after some quizzing regarding the destination took a bicycle rickshaw. Only when two up in this bicycle rickshaw going uphill did it become apparent what hard work this is for the pedaller. I got out and pushed on the uphill bits and we got home in  the end - about 2km away. Haroon had been frantic poor thing - apparently its not good business to lose your customers.