<— Read part 1: Getting to Pushkar

Bramha temple

Prayer at the lake

Prayers done, we headed into the market.

The bustling market

There were also a number of shops selling natural essential oils and incense — something not found anywhere else in Rajasthan. The reason — roses. In the desert. Honest! There are huge rose fields near Pushkar, so one thing lead to another, and in addition to rose essential oils, you get a huge variety of essential oils, the most interesting one being solid amber. It’s a slightly spongy piece of amber that has a beautiful, earthy smell, though at Rs. 350/- for a small little box, it is quite pricey. The shopkeeper assured us that the smell would last for 10 years (yes, 10) and that the tiny little box of amber was enough to perfume a medium-sized room! I picked up two boxes of that — one for me and one for mom — along with opium flower, white musk and iceberg essential oils.

Following the trail to Pink Floyd Cafe

Outside the Pink Floyd Cafe

Jholas and clothes galore

Taking a break

Dressed up for the tourists

I want to say that we did visit a lot of the tourist attractions there, but honestly, apart from the lake and the Bramha temple, we didn’t go see anything else! Instead, we spent our time roaming around the market and exploring the shops (and of course shopping).

Biking to the sand dunes

All-in-all, we had a wonderful time at Pushkar…and it certainly is on my list of places to visit again — this time, once the lake is full!

The Taj Mahal receives 2.4 million visitors per year. Celebrities, dignitaries, international artists, and royal visitors invariably choose one and only Taj Mahal, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, as tourist attraction in India that they would like to visit. Symbol of romance and passion, this lovely marble tomb has a lacework of precious and semi-precious stones and several endearing features that make it stand apart. Shah Jahan built the grand garden tomb as a tribute to his queen Mumtaz Mahal, who bore him 14 children in her short life of 38 years.
India’s old Varanasi city situated on the banks of River Ganges makes the cut for the top religious pilgrimage cities, perhaps to owing its antiquity. The 3000-year old city was once known as Kashi and is believed to be the city of Lord Shiva himself. There are as many as 84 Ghats of Varanasi, each with its own historical and mythological significance, that are best observed from the middle of River Ganges, during the early morning boat ride.
Pushkar is another small town that receives high number of foreign tourists who are lured by myriad cultural attractions its Camel Fair offers. The sacred Pushkar Lake and the world’s only consecrated temple of Lord Brahma at Pushkar do attract thousands of pilgrims here but it is the world’s largest camel and cattle fair that holds the main lure for American and European clients. Folk dance and song performances, traditional puppet shows, interesting turban tying and Mr Desert contests, and strange camel competitions such as camel races, camel dance, and camel beauty contests make for some interesting click able moments during India tour.
Extravagant Custom tours in India offer myriad diversions. Away from shopping malls and amusement parks, India’s true worth lies in its natural, cultural, architectural and spiritual worth. Yoga and Kerala Ayurveda tour to luxurious spa resorts in Kerala can provide you a chance to relax, as you never had before in rich green surroundings, and get rejuvenated for another stint in the urbane world. Pleasure beaches of Goa are popular among westerners for their raging nightlife and carnival-like festivities all the year round. From skiing at Auli to tiger trains at Ranthambore National Park to white river rafting at Rishikesh and to scuba diving in South India, adventure options at India are unlimited too.
Those who are traveling to India for only a week and wish to experience the best of luxury tourism in the country can find good travel agents and tour operators to customize India tours to their dream vacations. Five-star and luxury heritage accommodations all along the way with some of the most comfortable and royal luxury train tour in India can satiate even the most discerning traveler. If you are in a mood to splurge, there is no dearth of unique experiences in India – take a helicopter ride over the Himalayas, stay at Mughal-style princely camps with elaborate canopies and embroidered curtains in the heart of dangerous forests, and sip cocktails at world’s oldest private club. India Luxury Tours now include many of the lesser-known gems that offer just the experiences you have always fantasized about.

From one desert to another. Pushkar is in Rajasthan, and while it doesn’t possess Lawrence of Arabia type sand dunes, the green seen on the journey here does gradually erode a a more barren, thorny landscape. I’m in the company of Ian, who’s from Edinburgh, and who travelled down from Ladakh with me. It’s very hot, and full of flies which seem to zone in on my walking sandals. This is perhaps a cue that its time to change said sandals.

There are many visitors here. Some have come for religious devotions – this is one of the oldest cities and there are many temples, all ranged around a rather green and not entirely pleasant-smelling lake that is nonetheless considered to be holy. There are hippies, drawn no doubt by the fact that, since this is a holy city, drugs are legal here, are sold in fact from government emporiums. If you’re so inclined you can wander into a cafe and order a hash laden yogurt drink. It’s also the location of the world famous annual camel fair and even now there are more than a few of them around, spitting bad-temperedly as we pass. If it’s not camels, its cows. They clog the streets, watching us with an expression of absolute disinterest.

There are many, many beggers, their limbs smartly amputated. We find a small, white, partially constructed hotel on the edge of the desert, which is clean, and empty apart from ourselves: its the off-season. My room has a shower which dribbles rather stagnant-smelling water, and which promptly runs dry after a couple of minutes.

There isn’t a great deal to do here. There are many stalls, and many eating places, and many, many temples, but I’ve long since reached temple overload. I spent a lot of time walking in the desert, which is full of threatening, thorned plants that periodically piece even the thick soles of my walking boots. This is where the desert people build their huts, not unattractive constructions made of woven branches and mud and straw. They clean their dishes by scrubbing them in the sand. When I pass, they smile and say hello and ask for their photos to be taken.

This is the monsoon season. Rajasthan hasn’t had rain in four years, but now it arrives in heavy, ferocious bursts. The landscape gradually changes, filling with long-dormant plant life. To escape the rain, we eat, and eat, either from the many cafes, or from stalls at the side of the road which specialise in tooth-rotting sweets, all of them served with a black encrusting of flies. We forgo these, but the freshly cooked vegetable savouries are excellent. While we shelter from the rain though, it draws out other animals out onto the open There are monkeys and peacocks and pigs and parrots, and yes, those omnipresent camels and cows as well. At night, there are howls from desert wolves. I lie there and listen to them and feel an odd, giddy, liberating emotion.

Then it’s time to leave. Nearly in fact, time to return home.

This is the main purpose of my trip. I came to India to witness the most amazing event of the year — the Pushkar Fair. This is the time when the world’s largest camel fair is held, attracting 200,000 people and 25,000 camels, cattle and horses.  This is also the time when thousands of Hindu devotees throng the lake around the full moon day of Kartik Purnima to take a holy dip in the lake.

As one of India’s most sacred city, Pushkar comes with a legend.

“Myth says that Pushkar came into existence when Lord Brahma was on his way to search for a suitable place to perform a ‘Yagna’ (a fire sacrifice). While contemplating, a lotus fell from his hand on the earth. At the three spots where the petals landed, water magically appeared in the midst of the desert to form three small blue lakes, and it was on the banks of the largest of these that Brahma subsequently convened a gathering of some 900,000 celestial beings — the entire Hindu pantheon. And today, this holy lake is surrounded by more than 500 temples and 52 bathing ghats. During the auspicious full moon phase in October/November, its water are believed to cleanse the soul of all impurities, drawing pilgrims from all over the country……..”  — The ROUGH GUIDE to India

The most memorable and exciting journey of my trip, has just begun……

Hindu Pilgrim

Camels’/Horses’ Trader

We’ve had a spate of long weekends recently, and continuing our love affair with Rajasthan, we decided to drive down to Pushkar, notwithstanding all the negatives people had to say about the place, such as it was going to be as hot as a furnace and dirty to boot. After a lot of stops and starts, we finally decided to drive down to Jaipur in the afternoon, stay there overnight and then go on to Pushkar, where we would stay for 3 nights.

Leaving Delhi at around 3:00 on a Friday afternoon, we reached Jaipur at around 8:00, thanks to a pretty nasty jam right at the entry to the city. We headed straight for our favorite hotel — Arya Niwas, where they upgraded us to deluxe room at no extra charge, and we fell in love with the place all over again! Their normal rooms are very comfortable, but quite basic.

The deluxe room at Arya Niwas

We set out for Pushkar at around about 9:00 am the next day. Most of the drive is on the excellent 8-lane Ajmer highway, though once you take the turn for Pushkar, the state highway isn’t all that very great. We passed through narrow, winding, almost deserted roads…the signages were few and far between, and just as we were wondering if we had lost our way…we heard the unmistakable thump of an Enfield, and a few minutes later were greeted by the sight of two foreigners tearing along the road on the bike. That could mean just one thing — Pushkar couldn’t be too far away!

I have to admit that the first sight of the town doesn’t inspire confidence. On the way to our hotel, we drove down a rather badly pot-holed narrow road…right at the turn to the hotel we were confronted by the sight of a cow lazily ambling along the road, with narrow little open sewers, which I hadn’t seen since my childhood in Shakarpur (Delhi). The hotel, from the outside, wasn’t all that interesting either, and I could feel my heart beginning to sink towards my knees, because I generally pride myself on being able to find us good, comfortable, atmospheric, budget digs! This, though, was a big white house, with one of those huge gates that has a small opening to let pedestrians in, with the name of the hotel — Inn Seventh Heaven — stenciled on in peeling paint.

The central courtyard by night

Sitting area outside our room

The first impression you get is of tranquility, soothing greens, cool whites, and warm reds and browns…and then as your senses adjust you realize that you’re looking at a fountain in the center, a courtyard filled with trees, inviting dark wooden seating with cushions in warm reds and oranges.

Roof top dining area

The central courtyard by day

—> Read part 2: Around Pushkar

I have to mention this unusual ride from Jaipur to Pushkar. The original plan was actually to take a bus early in the morning to Ajmer first, then change another bus to reach Pushkar. But the host of the hotel advised me to buy a 9:30 am ticket from a local tour agency that able to send me straight to Pushkar. I was delighted of course. And I paid Rs. 150 for the it. When I purchased the ticket, I even double confirmed with the tour agency whether the bus is a deluxe bus. Deluxe bus here in India generally means an air-con bus and you are guaranteed a seat. “Yes! Yes!” they assured me.

Well, I showed up that morning and was relieved to find out that it was really a deluxe bus.  And I happily looked for my seat when I got on board. I was given number 11. Before I could sit down, a man shouted from behind. “No! No! Come. Sit here!” pointing somewhere around the driver’s seat. “Your seat is a ‘cabin seat’!” he continued. I said nothing at all, and quickly moved my ass.

Situation like this happens all the time. I felt no surprise. As long as the bus send me to my destination, I will not complain. The ‘cabin’ area was originally occupied only by the driver, 2 ticketing officers and me. But along the way, the bus made several stops and more passengers hopped on board. Not for long, my precious territory was shed and I was squeezed to a side, just beside the stairs in front. The driver told me that this is a 25-seats bus, with 25 normal seats and ‘unlimited cabin seats’. I put on a smile, reluctantly. What can I say?

They are so co-operative, looking at the camera for me to snap the shot.

In Ajmer, heading to Pushkar

Though Pushkar is just 15km away from Ajmer, they are separated by rocky hills and barrens

The view of Pushkar town from my guesthouse

Recently I was at Pushkar in Rajasthan  for the world famous camel fair. That this fair is known globally was borne by the fact that hundreds of foreign tourists were present at the fair. You couldn’t walk one pace without bumping into one.

It still came as a surprise to see locals hold near-perfect conversations in English, French and even German trying to sell their wares. Women, who it appeared had never seen the insides of a school, spoke English fluently.

I imagine that when your livelihood depends on knowing a foreign tongue, you pick it up regardless of how difficult it may be. Just as these women walk for miles to fetch drinking water because they know they have to, there’s no other way.

I couldn’t but watch in amazement how these poor rural folks managed to pick foreign tongues to make a living.

But sometimes in their desperate attempts to win over the foreign tourists us poor Indians feel a bit left out.

At the Pushkar fair, after walking under a really hot sun for hours clicking pictures after driving all night without nearly a blink of sleep we were exhausted and we sat down at a makeshift refreshment stall. There were these two Rajasthani traditional musicians playing a lilting folk number to a bunch of middle-aged foreign tourists.

I was enjoying it too and then it came to me in a flash that I had made a mental note some years ago to hear “kesariya balam padharo mhare des” (one of the most famous and most beautiful Rajasthani folk songs) from a real folk singer.

So I walked up to these guys [while they were taking a break after pocketing a few hundred rupees for a 10-minute performance and selling a CD of their music, yes the even had a CD of their music] and said “firangiyon ko kesariya balam nahi sunaoge?!” the singer gave a toothy smile and said “hume ye gana nahi ata sahab”. Probably he thought I won’t pay so I added for good measure that I’ll pay you to sing, but again the same answer.

Imagine! A folk singer claiming he doesn’t know the most famous Rajasthani folk song. Anyway, disappointed I sat back to enjoy my cold drink as the woman owner of the stall spoke crisp English to the firang woman in the group trying to sell some more stuff.

Back in Delhi, I searched for the song in YouTube and I found a video of none other than the legendary Pakistani ghazal singer, Mehdi Hassan, singing the song.

In the end my wish was fulfilled by the Emperor of Ghazals, who was born at a village called Loni in Rajasthan in a family of traditional musicians!

As I recover from the long  journey home, I’ve been able to take a little time to look over some of the photos taken in the amazing country of India.

Pushkar, located in Rajasthan, is one of India’s holiest places. Here are ascetics and holy men, backpackers, and tourists from all over the world. This small town sits on a lake with the holy place for bathing, the ghats or steps that lead down to the water. This year in India the monsoons did not replenish the lakes and in Pushkar as in other places such as Udaipur, the water levels are very low and use of water is a daily concern.

Pushkar is a marvelous place for a photographer and here I had the opportunity to walk with my young guide and capture the daily life in this most interesting town.

The photos speak for themselves, I think. Pushkar is a vividly-colored town and is also known for its annual camel fair in October. I regret that we arrived shortly after that big event, but I did see the arena where the trading took place.

Pushkar is filled with temples of course, and travelers with little means can find shelter and food if needed. I found the people of Pushkar to be most friendly, ready with a smile whether bead seller or small child. I enjoyed the small-town atmosphere and could see that daily life is full of congenial friendships.

Once I explained to my young guide, who went by the initials for his name, BP, that I wanted to just walk around and take photos rather than go into the temples, he seemed eager to share out-of-the way places with me. One of them was really unexpected, the crematorium found down a dusty road, near the fields of roses for which Pushkar is also famous.

But first, some of the gorgeous colors of life in Pushkar~

A Bead Seller

Deities!

Baba’s Barber Shop

The Crematorium with wood ashes remaining

Light was fading as we came to this place. Women were going home with their children, holy men were headed in other directions, and my  hotel, The Green Park, awaited. There Bela, the very solicitous young man who lives in a nearby village and works in the hotel as the cook, would prepare something as I wished, vegetables and rice.

It was a far different experience from the previous days~We stayed in one of India’s most legendary hotels, The Rambagh Palace in Jaipur.

India is a country where mythology can be found in every nook and cranny. There are innumerable religious places here and each of these religious places, temples, have a story to tell of their own. All of them hold some or the other kind of mythological importance. One such famous temple is the Pushkar temple.

This temple is located in the holy city of Pushkar in Rajasthan. Pushkar is a place which is known to have more than 400 temples there. However, the most famous temple here is the Pushkar temple which is dedicated to Lord Brahma. In fact, this is the only temple in the entire country which is dedicated to Lord Brahma.

Pushkar is a city which is otherwise drowned in the drudgery of sleepiness, becomes extremely active when the Pushkar camel fair is around. One of the main reasons why the Pushkar temple is considered extremely sacred is because it is believed that Lord Brahma had performed an important religious rite (yagna) here in the ancient times. The Brahma Temple is located in the Pushkar Valley and is one of the most important pilgrim centres for most of the Hindus.

The entire Pushkar temple, better known as the Brahma temple among the locals is done up in white marble. The walls of the temple are decorated with silver coins and the pilgrims are greeted by a silver turtle which is placed on the floor of the temple entrance. Although there are a large number of temples at this place, yet Pushkar is particularly famous for its five most famous temples.

One of the most famous legend states that the flower, which Lord Brahma is seen holding fell at this place, which led to the coming up of Pushkar temple, which is apparently exclusively dedicated to him. This temple, always manages to stand out of the crowd of other temples which are situated in this area. One of the main reasons for it can be attributed to the large amount of carvings and exquisite embellishments done at this temple. This temple is located on the banks of Lake Pushkar. Pushkar temple was first built during the 14th century on an elevated platform.

The marble image of the silver turtle on the entrance of the temple is one of its chief distinguishing features from all the other temples. The floor of the entire temple is adorned with black and white tiles in a checkered pattern.

Pushkar is a city which becomes extremely vibrant during the times of festivals and other religious occasions. The local population of Pushkar is staunch devotees of Lord Brahma and all the festivals, big or small are celebrated with lot of zest and excitement here. The holy lake of Pushkar temple is considered sacred by the devotees who visit this place. Thus, no visit to this place is complete without taking a dip in the holy waters of Pushkar Lake. While on a trip to Rajasthan, Pushkar temple figures out on one of the must visit places for every tourist.

Located on the banks of the Pushkar Lake, the Pushkar temple is the only temple of Lord Brahma in India. Being the only Brahma temple in India, the Pushkar temple has great significance. Millions of people in the country visit the shrine each year to worship Lord Brahma. Despite being one of the many temples in Pushkar, it is this Brahma temple that enjoys most popularity.

The temple traces its roots back to the 14th century. It is believed that Lord Brahma performed a yagya here along with other gods and goddesses. Incidentally a lotus fell off from the hands of Brahma and fell in the Pushkar valley. This is how the town derived its name, Pushp means flower and Kar means hand.

Soon after the flower fell off the hand of Brahma, the Pushkar Lake appeared miraculously. This is why the divine stature of the lake. The temple stands on a raised platform. This raised platform gives the temple a distinctive edge and adds to its prominence. Beautiful marble steps lead to this raised platform.

The main doorway of the temple features the image of a Hans. As per mythological epics, the Hans were the vehicle of Lord Brahma. This Hans was imbibed on the main doorway to segregate the temple from other temples that were nearby.

One of the most prominent features of the Pushkar temple is the lovely turtle carved in silver. This beautiful silver turtle is perhaps the most adorned feature of the temple. This silver turtle sits facing the sanctum sanctorum.

The flooring of the temple is in black and white cheques. This chequered floor is further adorned with silver coins. These coins were donated by devotes of this temple and are embossed with the name along with the date of birth or anniversary of their loved ones.

A four headed image of the Brahma graces this temple. Lord Brahma rests in a cross-legged position with Savitri on his right and Gayatri on the left side. Mythological legend has it that Savitri was the wife of Lord Brahma. Gayatri is believed to be the local maid whom Brahma married in order to be able to perform the puja. The temple also houses a statue of Lord Vishnu and life-sized dwarpals (door men) and Garuda pillars (a mythical bird, in gold).

Though the temple has its fair share of devotees flowing in all year long, people from all across the country flock the temple during the Kartika Purnima. As per the Indian calendar, the Kartik Purnima falls in the month of October-November. The Pushkar festival also takes place during this time.

This is the season when the whole town of Pushkar comes to life with joyous activities and festivities. During the Pushkar festival people also take a dip in the holy Pushkar Lake and worship Lord Brahma, who is believed to be the creator of this universe. Many people across the country consider this period of Kartik Purnima as highly auspicious. Make sure that you get the bookings one before festival season lest you will be deprived to feel the essence of spiritual beauty.

Un camellero verifica los dientes de un camello antes de comprar en el Pushkar Mela, 29 de octubre de 2009.
(Kevin Frayer)

Por Roberto Falcão

Parti de Jaisalmer (Rajastão) às 17h, para Ajmer (R 350 – US$ 7,60). A viagem foi um inferno, gente entrando e saindo do ônibus o tempo todo, muita gente em pé, luzes acesas durante quase toda noite.  Assim, resolvi dormir num hotel em Ajmer e visitá-la pela manhã. 

Fui no templo Sony, incrível templo jainista com modelos em miniatura em ouro, o túmulo do mestre sufi Darga e o museu da cidade. 

À tarde segui para Pushkar, cidadezinha a 10 km de Ajmer, localizada à beira do lago, com ótimas lojas para se comprar roupas e souvenirs. 

Os templos hindus (há varios deles) são fracos, o mais legal é descer nos ghats (ou escadas) à beira do lago e registrar as cenas dos hindus nos seus banhos de purificação. Como em todo Rajastão, os locais vestem roupas coloridas - as mulheres usam saris bordados e enormes brincos de argola no nariz, enquanto os homens abdam com turbantes coloridos e brincos nas duas orelhas. Para quem tiver mais tempo, uma dica legal para Pushkar é fazer um curso de tabla ou outros instrumentos tradicionais indianos. 

Parti de Ajmer para Delhi em um trem noturno, às 21h05 (R 165, ou US$ 3,58) - dormi bem a noite toda. Ao chegar em Delhi, na estação central fui ao guichê de informação turistica e reservei meu city tour por New Delhi e Old Delhi. Em 10 minutos eu já estava dentro do ônibus, visitando os pontos turísticos da cidade – custa R 180, ou US$ 3,91 (não inclui os tickets para entrada nos monumentos). Vale a pena para quem nao quer dedicar muito tempo a essa agradável cidade grande (em comparação com as outras cidades caóticas da India, pode-se dizer isto). 

Delhi me deu a impressao de uma cidade desenvolvida e moderna, avenidas largas, muitos parques e áreas verdes, prédios de arquitetura modernos em contraste com os monumentos históricos. 

Em New Delhi visitamos no tour: Observatório Jantar Mantar, Templo Lakshmi Narayam, Templo Bahai, Qutub Minar e Safdarjung Tomb. Passamos pelas embaixadas e prédios do governo. 

Em Old Delhi o tour nos levou ao Red Fort, Jama Masjid, Rajghat (onde Ghandi foi cremado) e Humayun’s Tomb. 

Red road , green field , and blue sky

He looked around 75 , but still enthusiastic, was playing guitar and singing REM .Though singing wasn’t pleasant , he was playing guitar unbelievably awesome.

His name was Vladimir, a Russian , from Leningrad . He had been in Gokarna since last one month , he comes to Gokharna every year. He was one of the many in the world who were addicted to Gokarna Just like every one of them were to Marijuana.

We reached Gokharna around Nine PM . After a long ride , long ride means 600 km of ride . We started from Bangalore at early morning . The sun was just setting up , I was enjoying the sun playing hide and seek in my rear view mirror through the ghosts of recession affected concrete forest.

The only hindrance to my ride was cows and buffalos all over the road , but we had the deal , they just move in their path, I envisage their trajectory and just ride accordingly .But some country buffaloes always braked the rule , they would stop in middle of the road and there goes my plan . One time I could almost touch the tail of one mad buffalo. From Bangalore to Tumkur , Tumkur to Shimoga , Shimoga to Jogfalls . In between shimoga and jog falls , the road turns red suddenly covered with red soil . Both sides blanket of  green fields , blue sky touching the green fields at the far end of the road . Red road , green field and blue sky , and the sound of my machine. No words to explain the feeling.

We reached the jog falls before the sun diving to horizon . The two sides of the road were cliff . Jog falls was disappointing , they say jog falls is the longest water fall in india , I would say , it is the longest artificial waterfall in india , because in week ends they open the dam when tourists arrives for watching , but in week days they wont open the dam and you could see two-three narrow falls . I imagined it would have been a fantastic view if fall was in her epitome ,which happens during the monsoon , when they have to open dam .

Initial plan was to stay near to Jog falls , as we had already covered close to 400 kilometres . But we changed the plan to ride to Honnawar which is on the coastal Karnataka . We were already in great western gatts , of course the roads were with lot of curves and hair pins , just like Vayanadu . Thick forest both sides , simply it was risky Journey .One time I lost the control of the bullet after rising from a hidden pothole , flew a little , landed back . I had to land on my right leg on ground .  That’s it , two seconds …, after that I was not able to feel my legs . I pushed the button for a long horn to inform varkey. I don’t know why , but suddenly my mind was flashed with videos of football players suddenly breaking the legs in to two ,I thought same thing happened to me ! . I Had to rest some time to understand that I still have a single piece leg , thanks god.

We had to get rid of the spiraling roads before the sun sets .But we were still maintaining seventy km/hour. On the way so many hippy gangs of ten to twenty bikes had been overtaking us like real bullets all the time  from Jog falls to Honnawar. I knew what to expect in Gokarna .

The moment you pass the western gatts , the first thing that strikes you will be the similarity between Kerala . The place created by Parashuraman is actually from Gokharna till Kanyakumari.  The places you saw till gatts suddenly changes, the people suddenly changes , the landscape changes , everything changes .Karnataka , state of Mysore , till 1973 ,twice the size of Portugal is a world itself. As I move , I experienced how everything changes on the ruler of distance. Western gatt was a fort in Kerala ,against so many invasions , not only the military invasion , but also the cultural invasion , which is the real precious thing it has done , I think.

People always gave a second look , some with some awe , some with curiosity , some with condemnation , whatever it was ,it felt good. A feeling of well-being. The machines were intimidating the people all the way. The more we traveled towards the coastal region , the more we were becoming energetic.

Cows , dogs and ohm beach

After reaching Gokharana  , we went ohm beach which is 16 kms from the national highway. When asked for rooms , the guard of rest house told us no rooms were available, but we could park our bikes there , and have to walk through beach for rooms . Engine was overloaded for the day already , after cruising six hundred kilomeres . Unloaded the bags and started walking through beach ,some couples sitting here and there exploiting the twilight for romanticizing. We got one hut for two hundred rupees . Took bath and already exhausted after riding the horse for 600 kms we ordered the dinner . And that’s where we saw Vladimir, he was sitting next to our table . And like all other westerners he also wanted to go to Varanasi , which is where they always sees “the real india” as per the western movies. Ohm beach also had everything to quench a westerner’s Indian dream. There was a trance mood , name was ohm , there were stray dogs and ofcourse a lot of cows ! , and not much people .

We walked along the beach after having a sumptuous dinner .Midnight blue sky with Orion consolation pointing towards the north as explained by varkey .Big groups of hippies , all groups had people of all age groups from infants to octogenarians , sitting around fire , singing and playing guitar. What a life! , no worry about future , no worry about jobs, no worry about making money , social status – nothing to worry, nothing to gain , nothing to loose.

It’s mornings like these that I’m happy that India tends to work on a later schedule.  Shubh had wanted to get up early so that we could go over to the Pushkar fair and really get some time in.  Early for me means 6am.  Early for Shubh is more like 9, and this thrills me as I roll over, see the sun setting the canvas tents aglow, but still hear my tent mate snoring.

When we finally do get up a take some time to inspect the tent again—it’s a bit like a small circus tent, with the space between our and our neighbors’ criss-crossed with ropes and stakes.  I wander around the back taking pictures of some of the plants, a praying mantis I find, and the plumbing system (which mostly consists of a pipe that drops off a cliff into the valley below.  Well, it’s rural India.

We walk up to the fort restaurant and get in on the buffet.  It’s an Indian/continental breakfast, which suits the crowd here best.  The majority of people that I see in the dining room are white westerners, and while they’re clearly here for some cultural experience, the food selection gives just enough of a hint of curry to allow them to say they ate Indian food for every meal, but still leaves open the possibility of toast and eggs.

We eat mostly in silence; I think Shubh is tired and I’m trying to make the room stop spinning because of my fucking malaria pills again.  I force down as much food as I can, but it’s no use—it burns my stomach like fire anyway.  I curse the doctor who prescribed these with the helpful advice “you might want to take these with food since they can be a little hard on the stomach.”  That’s a sugar coat and a half.  How about “you’re going to want to practice stuffing food down your maw like Takeru Kobayashi because these little guys are going to fuck you 7 ways from Tuesday.  But at least you’ll feel like you’re doing something.”

To pass the time and stave off my malaria pill-induced nausea we play the game of Where are They From.  Shubh and I listen to other people speak and try to tell what nationality they are; it’s not eavesdropping because we’re honestly only listening for vowel sounds.  The Dutch guy three tables down could be talking about his affinity for dog nipples—who knows, cause we’re not listening.

The most amusing part of the whole game for me is that Shubh really can’t tell the difference between English accents, even though I spend a lot of time working with him.  His categorizations consist of “European” and “American”, and that’s mostly because the syntax and accentuation is different.

How about this, I say, speaking with a heavy British accent.

“What?”

Do you hear anything different about my voice, I ask, switching to Irish.

“Not really.”

Nothing at all, I say, with my best shot at deep Southerner.

“I mean a little bit, but only some of the sounds.  I can tell it’s a little different, but not really.”

So we all sound the same to him.

We head back to the tent where he showers and I head out to take some pictures of the grounds.  Uncharacteristically, I will not have a morning shower today, which is weird for me.  But the shower is set up for an Indian bucket shower, and I’m really not in the mood to tackle a new cultural learning experience today, and on top of that, I’m going to a camel fair.  I don’t feel like a little one-day funk is going to make me a social outcast.

Once we a packed up and ready to leave, the tent organizer comes in and gives us some information about the fair and tells us what we owe him.  And now I am introduced to haggling.  Shubh throws his head back dramatically at the price and starts to argue and the guy puts up his hand as if to stop him.  And then the back and forth starts—the guys speak rapidly and I can’t even catch any quasi-english words.  Shubh will say something and the man looks wounded and moves his hand as though we’re threatening to steal food from his children.  The guy speaks and Shubh looks incredulous, shaking his head and acting like this is the most outrageous thing he’s ever heard.  Back and forth, back and forth.  And I sit there in the chair, not sure if I’m supposed to act like I’m unaware of the argument taking place, or if I’m supposed to participate in some way.  I pretend there is something wrong with my camera that requires my complete attention.

In the end Shubh bargains the guy down from 6,500rps to 4,500rps, which is pretty good.  If he hadn’t been there, I’d have been charged 10,000 likely, which is like $200.  Just the same, I don’t get the haggling, and what’s more, I find it incredible that once an agreement is reached we’re all friends again and the guy laughs and jokes with Shubh.  No hard feelings, no one feeling swindled…just carrying on.

I love this almost as much as I’m mystified by it.  I’m not one for haggling because I’m not one for argument, and this just seems confrontational.  But these guys are so conditioned and so good that there isn’t anyone taking this personally.  I’d take it personally.  I mean hell, I’ve walked away from Craiglist deals over $10 because someone’s trying to get me to drop my price.  If I’d take $6, I’d have listed it for $6.

The fair is a short 1km away, and once we get there I notice two very distinct characteristics.  The first, is that this is a very, very dusty landscape.  Dust blows around me immediately, and I can already feel it coating my sweat and bonding itself to my skin.  Also, it smells like camel shit.  A lot like camel shit, which should come as no surprise as there are (or recently were) between 15-to 20,000 camels here.  And they have left little gifts all over the place.

Fun fact about camel shit—the droppings, which people collect and use as fuel and sometimes medicine here—are uniform discs that are also littering the landscape.  I theorize that the reason for the uniformity is the fact that they all hit terminal velocity on the way down from such an absurd height and thus bombard the ground at the same speed.  Just a thought.

Before we’ve walked for three minutes I’ve already made a friend in the form of a thin kid of about 18 who is a local artisan who has work here he’d like to show me.  Camelshit.  Everyone here claims to be an artist, but the reality is that this kid’s job is to work the crowd, chat up a visitor or two, and direct him or her to a specific shop, for which he will receive a commission.  But he seems nice and we allow him to talk and walk with us for a while.

Shubh greets some people and begins talking and I look off into the distance attempting to catch a few phrases while feigning interest it some far off, unseen event.  Then the rapid conversation breaks off and he turns to me.

“Are you ready for your camel ride?” he asks with a grin.

What, I ask.

“I’ve negotiated 200rps for this camel ride right now, since you said you only wanted to go for 30 minutes.”

We’d been talking about this in the car.  I had agreed to the camel ride the same way you agree when a friend says you should backpack around Europe next summer—knowing full well that it probably isn’t going to happen.  It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that I’d expected a bit of a warm-up.  A camel is a big animal, and I’ve just gotten here.  I could use some time to walk around, get used to the noises of the fair, the feel of a small goat, or the idea that camels don’t frequently snap and kill their riders by dragging them for miles across an unforgiving desert.

Shubh looks very eager.

Ok, I say.  Let’s do this.

“Ok great,” he says, “just make sure you don’t give him the money til the end so he gives you a ride.

Roger that.

With a word form Shubh there are now 4 people spotting me as I try to climb up onto Jammy the Camel.  Jammy, though she has dropped down to a kneeling position on all fours, still comes up to a little below my chest, which is not only a long climb up, but a decent fall on the far side if I overshoot.  With a little luck, she’d roll over onto me too.

“Jump!” says one of the little men, who I don’t think fully appreciates my size.  I don’t think I’m going to hurt the camel, but she’s probably not going to love 200lbs of pasty white guy rag-dolling through the air and crashing down on her hump.  “Jump!” they say again.  So I jump, grab onto the saddle for dear life, and manage to not fall over the other side.  Jammy chews, spits, and looks bored.

Next two other little men place my feet into the stirrups, which consist of some webbing and give me riding instructions: “Lean back.”

With that Jammy starts to get up, and I get very excited because there are a lot of tourists with cameras here and my moment for YouTube fame is surely mere seconds away.  If you’ve ever thought that a camel was an awkward creature, you’ve never seen one get up.  Had you seen one get up, you would know that a camel was an awkward creature and would appreciate God’s sense of humor in not only giving them a hump, but also the ability to stand from a kneeling position.

As Jammy gets up, she extends her hind legs, which pitches me way forward, nearly bucking me off.  Fortunately I have a nub—roughly the size of a half-roll of quarters—at the front of the saddle—which I latch onto like a hipster on the last ironic trucker hat at American Apparel.  If I fall, I’m going right down onto Jammy’s long neck, an offense which (at least if I were a camel) would warrant a retaliatory trampling on principle alone.  Somehow I hang on, leaning back as hard as I can.

“Lean back as hard as you can!” Says the guy behind me.

Jammy then gets up off her front legs, which one would think would make things steadier, but instead almost pitches me off the side.  Finally we stand erect, beast and man, ready to take on the fair.  Then she starts to move.

We are high up.  Really high up.  It’s not a cliff or anything, but a horse is high—and a camel is a hell of a lot taller than a horse.  I hang on even tighter and lean back till my quads threaten to cramp up.  I’m not going to fall off this thing.  I refuse.

“This is good?” asks my tour guide, who sits behind me and gives his name as “David”.

Yes, I say, very good.

And we begin our tour of the fair.  The camel lopes along with a gait that never really smoothes  out.  Each step would be well accompanied by tuba music with a ba-wump deed dum, ba-wump deed dum theme.  We pass other camels, some pulling flowered carts with fat, cartoonish rubber wheels, and others that are dressed up and accessorized like hairy desert Barbies.  They have anklets with bells, nose studs, dyed hair, decorated and sparkling saddles, and pom-poms that swing with each step.

As we walk along David points out things that we see, but mostly talks about our professional lives.  What do I do?  What does he do?  He’s a businessman in Delhi who comes out here for the fair to make some extra money.  If I like the tour, he says, I can slip him a little gift when no one’s looking.  I’ll keep that in mind.

After about 10 minutes we pass one of the many water troughs that are located throughout the desert.  The handlers decide to give Jammy a drink (had it been 10 days already?) and take great pleasure in showing me the contraption used for watering the camels.  It’s a spigot on the opposite side of the water in the trough, and when they turn it on, Jammy lowers her head and grabs the spigot in her mouth, sucking away.  As her enormous cheeks balloon and drain with each gulp, I find myself laughing a little too hard at how funny this looks, and I disturb a bathing pilgrim.

Another reason for this festival is so that the faithful can come wash themselves in the desert before entering the temple to worship.  This is the reason the spigot is on the outside of the water trough—at any given point there are pilgrims—people who have made this journey for this specific reason—surrounding the water basin lathered up with soap, scrubbing furiously.  They then take water from the basin and rinse.  Then they repeat.   I would not dream of taking a picture of such a personal and spiritual event, even if the sway of the camel would allow it.  What’s more, it’s strictly prohibited by the town of Pushkar, as is immodest clothing, alcohol, tobacco, and embracing in public.

We lope on making small talk and with me attempting to take pictures on the back of the camel.  I’m fully away of the type of tourist I look like right now, but the next time I find myself in the Rajistani Desert on the back of a camel will likely not be anytime soon.

At one point a woman looks up to me and starts shouting to me from 17’ below.  “Shampoo!  Shampoo!” She cries, looking at me and tapping her head.

Hello, I yell back, unsure what to do.  Hi!  Then I turn away smiling like I feel we’ve had a great interaction but this camel-riding business now requires more of my attention.  And it does, because a few minutes later Jammy does a side-step around another camel and nearly sends me spilling.  The thing about the camel is that your natural inclination when you’re riding something is to cling to it as closely as possible—and with a camel, the only way to do that is to lean way, way back—and that’s the opposite of what your body tells you to do when you’re trying to not panic about a situation that’s freaking you out.

David then takes a break in his ongoing audio tour to solicit some prostitutes for me.  He does this right after we pass a restaurant he has just endorsed and right before we hit a ring of women giving a lot of attention to a single man as they sit on the ground by a walking path.  They are all dressed in very colorful garb, complete with translucent face veils and all manner of shiny ornaments.  David explains that they are ‘gypsy dancers’. For a few rupees they will take you out into the desert for dance circles in the evening, where they have taken many men and made merry.  I think he means ‘made merry’ in a Lord of the Rings kind of way, but after this he nudges me and explains that for a few more rupees he can arrange a more intimate gathering afterwards.

Sadly, I tell him, I won’t here this evening—I’m heading to Agra.  Otherwise I would certainly consider heading out into an unknown desert with a group of strange women in a region that forbids so much as public embracing, because I don’t see what would possibly go wrong.  For safety I should probably bring a ton of money and get really hammered first to relax the mood.  Yes, I tell David, it’s too bad I can’t make it.

As the fair gets louder I notice that we’re heading through the market now, where there is haggling all over the place, and for all manner of goods.  At the top of a small incline there are amusement park rides—several feris wheels, a few kids’ rides, and a freak show with posters of clearly photoshopped two-headed children.

As the ride nears the end David takes me through the competition area, which has a bit of a gladiator feel to it. It’s a circular arrangement of stadium seats around a huge dirt ring that is used for the showing of livestock and various competitions, including the Indian vs. tourist tug-of-war, which has just ended.  There’s a brief moment where I convince myself that I‘ve been betrayed by David and that I am walking into a trap.  The crowd roars as we enter through one of the tunnels and onto the competition grounds—I wait to here a voice announce that David has now brought in an unwitting tourist to the camel jousting competition or something similarly ill-fated.  But it turns out that once we enter it’s just the crowds cheering for various performers, which include a little girl of no more than 5 who is walking a tightrope 10’ off the ground while balancing a set of two pots on her head.

After Jammy skillfully navigates us through the crowd and to the other side, I see Shubh, who takes a picture of me on the camel as the handlers get it to “kush”, or kneel, again.  The kneeling part is not nearly as bad as the standing part, and I’m feeling so good about not face planting on my ride that I tip David 50rps.

Since we are close to the show arena we walk into the middle of the dirt circle and observe a group of women—tourists—participating in a water-jug carrying competition.  Each contestant has a large clay pot full of water, which she must carry as fast as she can for about 100’ to the finish line.  It takes a long time.  The logistics of organizing such an event are apparently more complex that one would realize, and after waiting for the contest to start for 15 minutes I start looking for a better way to spend my time.

Someone else has apparently made better use of his time as well as a scuffle off to my left catches my attention.  Two men have another by the arms as two police officers walk up to him.  The man in the middle is apparently protesting his innocence; one of the police officers gives him a sharp crack up the back of his head as the men on either side drag him off and out of the arena.

“Pickpocket,” says Shubh.

What are they going to do, I ask?

“The police will beat him up.” Says Shubh matter-of-factly.  Huh.

Now the women are off and there is much cheering and yelling as they madly dash across the dusty arena.  After about 20 seconds a woman in a white tshirt wins.  People cheer.  It’s a great moment as I look around—half of the people here can’t communicate with each other because of different languages or dialects, but in this moment of friendly and silly amusement, we are all sharing something nonverbal, and the joyous energy surges through the crowd as we all laugh and move together in a writhing mass towards the finish line.  The women are celebrities and seem a little overwhelmed, but spirits are high, cultural ice is broken, and Shubh and I decide to move onto some of the less-raucous events of the day.

We take some time to walk around the fair, lightly haggle with some people, and then look at more food that isn’t safe for me to eat.  There are several booths selling large daggers and swords, which Shubh tells me are for decorative or ceremonial purposes, such as for Sikhs to wear in their traditional garb, but as I look more closely at them, they are cheap and plastic and unimpressive.  I’m not sure what I was expecting—some part of me always wants to find something special from a region—a camel herder’s knife from ore found in a remote part of the desert that has been hammered and pounded into shape by traditional methods over weeks of time.  But globalization is increasingly making my idiotic dreams that much more improbable; why not just send to china to have plastic injection molds made and stamp these puppies out for 34 cents and sell them to tourists for $30?  You can’t blame them; authenticity is often a fabrication of a visitor—the locals only care if it works, not how it was made.

The only thing that we buy from the fair is a bottle of water—because I realize too late that the heat from the sun and the sand has stripped all moisture from me and I am now getting a really bad headache.  We stop to look at several interesting herbs from a guy who has set up shop next to a peanut vendor.  I had seen these plants before and had mentioned my fascination to Shubh, who advised that I take some home until I told him what a horrifying violation of customs that would be.  The plants were being sold from a round pile in front of the man—collapsed and greenish in color, they looked more like clumps of dried seaweed—and this is their appeal.  Once you place them in water and give them a day or two, they explode into lush green plants again.  I’ve seen them marketed as resurrection plants.

Shubh buys four of them for his brother who likes plants and we walk back to the car, but are first intercepted by our ‘artisan’ friend from earlier in the day.  He would like us—please—to come look at some of his work, and since he did say the magic word, I agree and we go to see what he has.  And immediately we are smoothly—but not smoothly enough—handed off to the sales guys who start using the key phrases that they know play on tourist sympathy.  This is my living.  My village makes its money this way.  This is how my village supports itself.

But they are a nice bunch and don’t pressure me too much, which is likely because, even though they speak English, I am speaking through Shubh.  As an Indian, Shubh has a much better idea of the value of these products and will be able to bargain for far better deals that I would.  And they know that he’ll pull me right away if they start anything, and the last thing they need is for the rich whiteface to leave.

So they begin showing me some marble jewelry boxes, some carved elephants, some chess boards, and a couple of ash trays.  The stuff looks pretty good—not like most of the crap I’ve been seeing, so I’m interested in buying, but am sure not to let on. The funny thing is that this doesn’t really matter in the culture I’ve seen; you can not be interested at all and salesman will put together a package and force it on you—“you like?  No?  How about this?  I make you good deal, real cheap.”

Shubh gets me a pair of stone elephants for 400rps each, and since they are playing nice, I buy a number of other items, which they wrap behind the table, though I am very careful to watch them and be sure they don’t switch anything on me.  We part amiably, and we wave goodbye to our little ‘artisan’ friend, who has surely now just scored himself a solid commission.  It’s at that point that we realize that our cell phones don’t work and that we cannot find the driver.

This is no small fair, so the likelihood of finding him by chance is not good.  On top of that, the combination of the malaria pills from this morning, the dehydration from the afternoon, and the constant wafting of foreign cooking and camel shit has made me start feeling less than wonderful.  Shubh can see this and hurriedly attempts to get a signal in a fashion that makes me think that we are in a very strange Verizon commericial.  Can you hear me now?  How about now?  No, I’m in Rajasthan.  In RAJASTHAN.  No, I’m at a camel fair.  A CAMEL FAIR.

After Shubh returns to the spot where I am slumped we walk over past a tent of carvers who immediately offer us a seat down.  I’m not in the mood for interaction—all I want is to be back in the car, back in air conditioning, and back to napping as we move across the desert.  But they will not be dissuaded.

“Would you like some chai?”  One guy asks, “In our country you are considered a part of God and we will treat you as a guest.”  I have heard this, and this is the first time it has made me uncomfortable.

No, thank you, I say.  He looks a little insulted and I shift uneasily.  I’ve only been here for about a minute and I am already feeling uncomfortable.  Something doesn’t feel right and I’m on edge.  Shubh is off talking to someone at a few feet away and I wish we could get out of here.

“Please, please look around if you like,”

I will, I say, thank you.  And thus I make the same mistake again.  In being polite—which I can’t help but do—I’ve shown him that the door is open.  And now, through a subtle unseen signal, a guy from the side of the tent has been triggered.  He comes over with books of postcards and begins to show them to me, one at a time.

Very nice, I say.

Stupid.  Stupid.  Stupid.

“I make you good deal—you take it, 200rps.”

No, no, I say, I’m all set.

“I make you good deal,” he says again.

No thank you, I say, and walk over to some of the carvings to get away from him, which was, in hindsight, the worst possible move.  I am now deeper into the tent, and it soon becomes very clear that they don’t bother putting the high-sellers on postcards.  Offhandedly, I touch a carving.

“You like?  I make you good deal.”  The guy is off to my right and has swooped in so closely that I can see the blackened roots of his teeth.

Oh just looking, I laugh.  But this doesn’t matter because now another guy comes in from the left side and starts taking out sets and sets of the things that look like the carved elephant I have just touched.

“You like elephant?  Look at this elephant—I give you good price, money no problem.”

“No, no, money no problem,” pipes in the guy from the right “we make you good deal, good deal.  What you like?  More elephant?”  he looks at the guy at the left sternly and motions with his hand in a what the fuck are you doing kind of way, which creates a new flood of carvings from my left.

“This one has the elephant, pregnant, with lions and other animals outside carving.”  He traces his finger along the elephant’s snout, highlighting the carvings.  “This one has elephant three times pregnant—very good, my grandfather carve this—and I make you good deal.  First customer.”  What he means by the pregnant elephants is that the back end of the stone elephant carving has been hollowed out with a honeycomb pattern so that there’s a dome where a solid back end would be—in this the carver will work his or her tools and carve a second elephant inside from the leftover stone.  It’s a very popular style that I’ve seen before—like back in the other tent—and they were of much better quality.

“Here is also an elephant with man and woman making sex,” he grins, showing me a hollowed out elephant which has a stone carving of a man ‘making the sex’ with a bent over woman.  I take a moment to appreciate the detail in the ‘oh’ faces, which is extensive.

Very nice, very nice, I say, looking back over my shoulder at Shubh.  I want out of here.  I don’t want one of these elephants, and I’m running out of ways to stall.  I see a chess set and inquire about the price, which, of course, means not only that I want to buy it, but that I want to pay top dollar for it.

“Oh this set very nice,” the guy on the right says, giving a whole schpeel on how everything is hand carved and the pieces are authentic. “I make you great deal.  Great deal.”

I’m just looking, I say.  Just takin a look.

“You not like it?” And again he makes a furious face and a violent hand movement to the guy on the left who quickly picks up another chessboard and displays it to me as the guy on the right begins his monologue about the quality of the set once again.

I again tell them I’m not interested so now come the package deals.  The elephant and the chessboard.  You no like?  Ok, different elephant.  No?  Different chessboard.  No?  I make you good deal.  Good deal.  Money no problem.

In the flurry of information I look to find Shubh to signal him to get me the hell out of here and I see to my dismay that he is now gone—nowhere in sight.  I am on my own with my two salesman, and his absence explains the heightened aggressiveness.  They need to sell this shit while the whiteface is alone without his Indian guide.

After the 6^th time of going back and forth I realize that I am in a textbook tag team.  As soon as I decline one offer, one comes from the other side where that person has been using his free moment to compile some new set to pitch when I turn away from his partner.  It’s furiously fast and incredibly exhausting.  And they are now getting frantic because they know Shubh wouldn’t leave me alone for long.

“All yours,” one of them says “3600rps.”  And I scoff at him.  That’s close to $80 for a chess set and a shitty version of an elephant I bought a few tents over for $8.

Nahi, I say, no way—too much.

“Ok, ok, 1400rps for elephant.”

Nahi, I say again waving my hands, too much.

“How much you give for elephant then?”

Elephant, I say, I’ll give you 400.  The man snorts at this, which actually helps me feel more secure in what I’m doing because now I know he’s bluffing and that we both know he’s full of shit.  He would still make a fine profit margin on this piece for 400rps, and I don’t even want it.  I just want the hell out of here.

“Chessboard,” he says “ I give you for 2600rps.”

Nahi, I say again, too much—I don’t have that much money.

“How much you have,” he asks, foolishly expecting truth from the man he’s been verbally accosting for the last 5 minutes.

400rps, I lie.

“Money no problem,” his friend pipes in who is clearly more of a trained parrot than an English speaker.  I expect ‘we make you great deal’ to make it in again, but it doesn’t.  His partner looks halfway between disappointment and disgust at this figure, but then remembers—money no problem.

“Ok, ok,” he says “elephant and chessboard—4000 rps.  I wrap for you.”

Nahi, I say, that’s more than the price you offered separately.

This is starting to get ridiculous and their aggressiveness reaching a frantic level.  But three minutes later my savior Shubh walks into the tent just and informs me it’s going to take 8 hours to get to Agra for tonight.

“It’s going to take 8 hours to get to Agra for tonight.”

Seriously, I say, looking very concerned.  How can it take that long?

I am acting very upset because I want a reason to divert my attention from my two new friends who are practically foaming at the mouth.  I make intense eye contact with Shubh and I feel their eyes on me.  Get me out of here, Shubh.

And then Shubh says the words I’ve been waiting to hear; “We need to go.”

Ohwellguysthankssomuchit’sbeengreattalkingwithyoubutnowihave togo, I say as I make a beeline for the edge of the tent.

And now the chase is on.  My new friends are now fully aware that the winds have shifted, and not in their favor.  Shubh is back, I’m leaving, and on top of that, they know that I know that they’re overcharging.  And prices plummet.

Ok, ok, elephant for 1200rps.  Chessboard for 1800rps.  I’m heading straight for the car now.  Ok, 800 for elephant.  800 good price—good deal! And the deals keep coming; the two of them are literally stumbling and tripping as we haul ass to the car, frantically dropping prices, thrusting items toward me so desperately that I jam my hands into my pockets so as not to risk “buying” something when it’s stuffed into my possession.  Nahi, Nahi, I say in desperation.

Ok, one says—600rps!  600rps for the elephant!  I give to you for 600!  We are now well away from the tent and are about 10 feet from the car.  Precious seconds later I’m opening the door.  Ok, 400!  400rps for the elephant!  That’s your price, that’s your price!  The man with the blackened teeth screams as Shubh helps me push his hands—which are now snaking into the back of the car—back out the door.  Finally the door shuts and as though someone has flipped a switch, the two immediately turn around and walk back to their tent without a look back.

I flop back in the seat and breathe a sigh of relief.  Shubh sits there smiling.

Where’d you go? I ask him.

“I wanted to see how they would treat you if I wasn’t there.  You got a taste of India.”

It’s funny how my tastes of India are so closely linked to traumatic experiences, I say.  Shubh just shrugs.  We drive for Agra.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

We get 30 minutes into the drive when we start seeing packs of camels—whole herds of them—walking down the road.  The driver now knowing that my incomprehensible babbling usually means I’m seeing something I want to look closer at pulls over and out I go, into an oncoming group of camels.  Off in the distance they make for a great shot—the sunset backlighting their tall and slender frames gives a feeling of isolation and a kind of peace.

And it’s at this point that I look up from my camera and realize that they are heading right for me.  RIGHT for me, and I don’t know what to do.

I’m not completely city.  I like working with animals and getting my hands dirty, but I have little experience with large animals and—lets say—a very healthy respect for their ability to do great damage with little effort.  And all I can think about is the size of the animals moving towards me—this huge mass, and the fact that like a fool I am standing in the open door of the car with my camera out about to be trampled, have the car crushed, and the open door snapped off.

Shubh, I say, they’re coming—what do I do?

And then they are on me and it’s amazing.  They make almost no sound, but like a stream around a boulder they part and move and slip around the car, inches from me.  I’m laughing like an idiot and the herders look confused, likely because this would be like someone in Central Park laughing and pointing at squirrels.

One of the herders comes up to be in the midst of the great camel migration and offers to take a picture for me.  I place my camera in his open hand, because, as is now obvious, I am a trusting idiot.  He looks confused so I take it back.  He sticks out his hand again and I shake it.  He looks even more confused.

“He wants money,” says Shubh “get in the car now.”

So we again exercise the save-the-white-dude routine and stuff me into the car like a fired-upon diplomat and whisk me away while Shubh scans the horizon for potential risks.  Later I ask Shubh what the whole thing was about.   “The people,” he tells me “are very poor, and they know that you are very rich.”  I protest for a moment and he cuts me off.  “In India you are very rich.  I am rich in India, but you are very, very rich.  So they think because you have white skin that you have much money and he was asking you for some.”

And right then I feel terrible.  I’d gotten so used to blindly following orders in order to stay safe that I’d forgotten to actually interact with people.  The little man dressed in the worn clothing wasn’t threatening—he was only asking for some money not because he thought he deserved it, but because he just thought I had a lot and that it didn’t matter to me.  And honestly, by the standards of this country his assumption was correct.  And I wish I hadn’t allowed myself to be driven away.  I wish I had given him money.  A lot.  I wish I had given him 500rps and made his year.  It’s 10 frigging dollars to me, but imagine how much that would have meant to him.  The feeling of a missed opportunity sits int eh pit of my stomach like a cold stone.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

It was Shubh who suggested the beer, and since we really had nothing else going on in the back of the car for the next 6 hours getting a little blitzed seemed like a lovely idea.  At one of the rest stops Shubh picked us up a couple of beers and some snack foods for the car.  As we sit in the back drinking and periodically hiding the alcohol at border crossings, we laugh about the fair and talk about all that we have learned from each other so far.  Shubh is a good man, and as I take another pull from my Hayward’s Dark Beer, I think outside myself and how I would never have dreamed that I would find myself in the back of a taxi in Rajisthan drinking beer with a friend and eating distinctively Indian snackfoods as we tumbled down the road toward the Taj Mahal.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

After a few hours and an several “rest stops”—the wonderful thing about driving in rural India is that rest stops are where you make them—we end up back in another very large, very crowded city.  It’s at this point that Shubh suggests that we try another little experiment since we are still a solid 4 hours from our destination.  I am going to go to buy beer, as a white tourist, and see if I get the same price as he does.  It seems like an interesting opportunity, but as soon as I step out of the car onto the busy street I am immediately struck by how dependent I am on Shubh and our driver.  Crossing the street makes me feel like a kid again—overly cautious and afraid—the rules I have been following all of my life don’t apply here, and I need to be cognizant of that, but at the same time trust in the way things work here and fling myself out recklessly into traffic.

I feel like an old scuba diver whose air line runs back to the ship—I am not really here in this place—I’m just a visitor, and my lifeline is this car.  It tethers me back to my reality, my world.  It is my safety and my hindrance—it allows me to travel safely and comfortably as a rich man in this country, but at the same time, it doesn’t fully allow me the opportunity to actually interact as on of the people, which is usual my favorite part of traveling.

After I cross the street dodging carts, cars, bikes, and cows, I make it to a small shop that sells to beer.  I had needed it pointed out to me, as they all look the same to me—very small shops with busy advertising signs placed all over, with none of the identifying insignia (which the exception of Coca-Cola) that I am familiar with.  When I get to the store I greet the clerk and tell him doh beer, which Shubh has told me is “two beers” in Hindi.  The man charges me 130rps and I walk back to the car, triumphant.  Not only have I managed to cross the street and make a purchase by myself, but I’ve done so without being overcharged.

“He overcharged you,” Shubh says when we are back in the car and he inspects the MRP (manufacturer’s retail price) on the back of the large brown bottle.  “By 40rps.”

Dammit.  I mean, in the great scheme of things, it’s like 75 cents.  Nothing to me and a lot to him, but it perpetuates the feeling of powerlessness that I feel in this country.  It’s strange to be so seemingly rich and powerful, but to perpetually play the fool from whom money is parted.  But then I remember that I’m sipping a local beer and driving down the highway towards the Taj Mahal.  If such bits of luck can be dropped in my lap, I’d be a hypocrite to complain about having 70 cents fall into someone else’s.  I genuinely hope he enjoys it.

*                                                                      *                                                                      *

I find that the cities in India stress me out more than most anything else.  It is late night again (though not at late as last night), and as we ride through Agra and try to find the Taj Mahal (and by proxy, our hotel), I find that I get more and more panicky.  There are so many people.  So many.  It’s the first time that my aversion to crowds has really begun to manifest itself, and it does so with a vengeance.

The people that I stare at out the window keep coming in cascading waves of humanity.  Hundreds and hundreds of people flood the city streets for no other event that that of their daily lives.  Countless shops and dizzying numbers of Indians—with no purpose.  In the US there is an order—to people and businesses.  People come and go at predetermined times, and businesses have a certain place and linear nature that is completely absent here.  People are everywhere—in every nook and cranny, and they take no time or effort to stake out and defend the little plots of land that we Americans use to define our lives.  I don’t know how to handle all this.

The hotel is gorgeous and smells overwhelmingly of jasmine, which is from the candle-heated pans of oil that float by the raised jet-black pools full of gently flowing water and flower pedals.  Several bellhops wait on me and Shubh as we walk in to the lobby which is modern, clean, and exceptionally shiny.  A speck of dust exists on nothing. If IKEA made a hotel lobby, it would look like this—brilliantly shined marble floors, rich dark leather seating, and tastefully modern lighting that bathes the room in a warm yellow glow.  It’s beautiful after a day of travel, though all I can think about is showering and going to bed.

Our room is small but clean and overlooks the garden, and after I shower and change, I spend some time exploring the minibar and looking out over the pool.  We eat dinner at the restaurant down the hall, which is a buffet, and it is surprisingly benign—Westernized for the Western guests, Shubh explains to me, also shocking me as I watch him take a big bite of beef.  “Yes,” he says “I eat beef.”

It’s nice to be comfortable, and everyone likes to be treated well, but I have 4-6 people who are waiting on me at my table watching me eat.  As soon as my utensil touches down on the tablecloth someone is ready with a new one.  For someone not used to being served, this is foreign and unwanted.  But after a time we retire to the room and I think, as I drift off into a very deep sleep beneath my wonderfully clean sheets, that for all the pomp and circumstance, I’m very content to be here at this moment.

The cab, uncharacteristically, is right on time.  For a culture that admits that punctuality is not high on the agenda, this is a really punctual cab company.  We’re heading to Aksherdahm Temple, which is about a two hour drive, and the driver speaks no English.  While this is a fairly straight-forward trip, this doesn’t make things easy—we do a lot of hand-gesturing, and I’ve been instructed that if and when we get confused, I am to call Mr. Pal, Abhishek, or Shubhendu, tell them what I need, and then give the phone to whomever I’m interacting with and they will explain.  That’s pretty sad, pretty helpless, and pretty optimistic that someone who has a phone put in his hand by a foreigner doesn’t just bolt.  But what the hell.

We begin our drive and there isn’t much to speak about due to the language barrier, but the driver does occasionally point at things, mention something in heavily accented English, and then ask me to repeat when I’ve repeated what he has said several times as I myself try to decipher was has been said.  This happens with every interaction, and we actually get pretty good at starting our tet a tet of repetition a good 4 minutes before a decision needs to be made so that we can reach an understanding and a decision by the time it’s necessary.  We’re doing pretty well.

We drive through Delhi and I never stop being amazed at the number of people, the scope of business, and how much my cultural preconceptions have hindered my ability to understand this place.  I know that most Americans work, have a job, get some kind of paycheck, go back to a domicile of some kind in the evening, and live their lives in a fairly general pattern.  Here, I have no idea what’s going on.

Streets are covered with countless venders selling peanuts every hundred feet, or chunks of sugar, roots, roasted this and stewed that.  Does the average Indian have this much disposable income to support all these places?  Can you actually support your life on selling peanuts in a poor city?  What about where these people sleep?  I’ve seen people sleeping all over the place, and they don’t look homeless.  Can you just crash in a field somewhere?  Does this happen?  And even if there were such a field, how do they decide who has ownership?  With the litigiousness of American society, nothing happens without someone approving or disapproving it; we have vacant lots that are managed by landlords—what about the lots I see here?  People have built shacks and shanties on them—is this legal?  If it weren’t, what would be done?  Do you just set up camp wherever you feel like and just roll with it?  I guess I just have a hard time understanding the scope of humanity here—this place is packed with people, and I just don’t understand how they make it work.

The drive takes about 90 minutes as we had anticipated, and is punctuated halfway through by another exchange over the word ‘temple’. I think we are here early, but then I see what’s going on when the driver pulls over—Lotus temple.  You’ve seen Lotus temple before.  It’s an enormous white temple with angular pedals that reach up to the sky like a metal flower opening.  To describe it in nerd terms, I’d say it looks like a cross between elvin décor and Klingon architecture.  Yeah, enjoy that one.

I snap a picture and we press on; before long the driver starts pointing, which we both understand; Aksherdahm Temple is off in the distance, and we’ll be there soon.  We get to the carpark and I have to get out of the car, go through a bomb checkpoint, which has become beyond second nature, and meet the driver inside.  We exchange numbers, and I put off in my mind the ridiculous idea of us communicating over the phone without the help of hand gestures.  We’ll tackle that issue when we come to it.

I enter the pre-security checkpoint for Aksherdahm.  While a center for Indian culture and the peaceful religion of Hindu, Aksherdahm is not without a troubling past.  About 5 years ago it was seized by terrorists for about a week, and this has left everyone a bit jumpy, which is far from not understandable.  The security measures, however, and nothing if not extremely, extremely thorough.  It’s easier to fly than it is to get into Aksherdahm, and I’m really not joking.  As I am removing the batteries to my mobile and my camera (neither are allowed on the grounds), I catch sight of a prohibited items list.  It easily contains 50 or so items, and they get very specific.  There are the standard bans on flammable liquids, weapons, and drugs, but then things get a little more interesting.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Pen drives
• Flash lights
• Magnets
• Utensils
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Notebook
• Diary
• Umbrella
• Calculator
• Chocolate
• Newspapers
• And last but not least, Drunkards

I can understand the mobile phone and technology, but a great number of these seem a little too specific to be worth the effort of mentioning them.  Is smuggling shampoo into the compound that large of an epidemic?

The line to check my electronics isn’t long, but it’s very slow moving and rather…Indian.  With the lack of personal space in the country, people’s line-standing etiquette is just different.  It’s not uncommon to push, keep your hands on the back of the guy in front of you, and shove and push your way in front.  And I’m alone now, and it really feels that way.  I don’t like acting meek but I am—I can only rely on the kindness and English skills of the officers working, and while they do an excellent job of taking care of me and getting me through the lines, it feels a little like I’m the teacher’s pet and all the other pupils look at me, annoyed at the privileges I get because of my nationality.

Security checking actually consists of looking through everything, including shoes, and patting me down with an explosive scanner.  There is also a good old-fashioned hand frisk which consists of a delightful yet unexpected juggle of the nuts.  That’s some customer service.

The monument itself is something to behold.  The first thing that stands out besides the size of the compound is the intricacy of the carving.  In the center is the temple itself, made of white stone that I would assume is marble, and every inch of it is ornately carved.  It looks like a mini figurine that someone has spent years perfecting.  At the base of the monument are symbolic carvings of elephants—often with multiple trunks, or with many elephants seemingly paying homage to one large central one.  Surrounding the temple on all sides is a shallow pool of water which is fed by 108 brass cow-head spigots that send water cascading from their mouths.  The number, I hear, is symbolic of the number of rivers that feed the region.

Unfortunately, the temple itself is closed, which is news to me.  But there are other things to see here, and I follow along the perimeter, which consists of carved sandstone and encompasses the entirety of the enclosure.  Eventually I come to a point where there is a momento picture being taken.  Normally, this would not be attractive to me in the least, but given that my camera and my shampoo have both been confiscated, I decide to go for it, and at the reasonable price of 100rps, what the hell.

As I am waiting my turn, two girls jump up in front of me, one of them wearing a yellow siri with a blue scarf.  The man taking the pictures tells her she has cut the meek western dude standing off to the side awkwardly, and she asks me if this is ok.  Never one to offend (which just means weak-willed and not in a real hurry to take a picture by myself) I tell her to go for it.  She thanks me, takes her picture with her friend, introduces herself to me, and as I am in the process of forgetting her name, the camera guy signals that it is my turn.  Ok, let’s do this.

After some positioning he gets ready to frame the shot and I stand there, good and uncomfortable.  Not only am I now taking a picture alone, but I’ve had to get off the step everyone else stands on because I’m too tall, and beyond that, I’m not quite sure what to do.  The last three families I’ve seen up here looked incredibly stern—not a smile in sight.  Should I smile?  Would that cheapen the reverence of this holy place?  Then again, we’re talking about a holy place that sells souvenir photos.  I go with the compromise that almost never works well; I will smile lightly with my mouth closed.  This never works because when I’m smiling politely my eyes give away the fact that I’m not really into it; I look bored or angry.  And my mouth always ends up looking a little lopsided and I exude a general air of discomfort.  It’s not pretty and it makes me—and I fully appreciate the offensiveness of this—look a little more special needs than I’d like.

Making things even better is the fact that the White Western guy who doesn’t like a lot of attention has attracted quite an audience.  Dwarfing my usual entourage of onlookers, I now have a solid 15 people wondering what the dopey American is doing having a picture taken by himself with such a “out without my walking helmet” look on his face.  And my new friend, let’s call her Bindaya (because that sounds something close to what she said) has now amassed a group of her girl friends who are watching intently and giggling.  Basically all I need is for a swami to come up behind me and pants me and we’re looking at my nightmare scenario for social awkwardness.  Click.  Thank fucking god.

As I leave the line and continue walking the perimeter I round a corner and run into Bindaya and her friends.  It would seem they’ve been waiting.  Bindaya introduces herself to me again and the other girls begin to chime in—about 8 in total.  Where am I from?  What’s my name?  What am I doing here?  They appear to be in college (Bindaya says she is a lecturer at a local college), and every response I give elicits a round of giggles.  The all introduce themselves, and since I don’t know if they’re really strict Hindu’s, I’m not sure if it would be inappropriate to offer my hand, particularly in a temple, so I just nod awkwardly as I meet each one.  It feels incredibly incomplete to meet someone and not seal the interaction with a handshake.

After a few more questions they say goodbye and walk on slowly, and I walk slower, linger behind a corner, and then find a lookout over the temple and contemplate life for a while to give them some distance.  I swear sometimes my social awkwardness is a disability.

Walking on I pass the Lotus Garden, which is 7 pedals sunken into the landscape with stone with each pedal inscribed with plaques in Hindu and English of peaceful quotes about man’s relationship with God.  I can’t think of anything else to do, so I walk down the steps from the bridge that crosses over the middle of the garden and begin reading.  I do this for about 3 minutes when I hear my name.

“Hi Bryan!”  It’s Bindaya and her friends, crossing the bridge, waving and giggling.  I give a sheepish wave and go back to reading the plaques, ignoring the other people on the bridge watching me now.  I make it to the 3^rd pedal when I see a flash of yellow and look up to the bridge and the same girls are walking back over, waving to me again.  This happens 2 more times.

I’m uncomfortable.  I mean, it’s flattering, and I would actually not mind talking with the girls and getting to know more about where we are and what they do, but I’m really not in that place, and the language barrier is really exhausting at times.  They speak very, very good English, but sometimes just decoding the accent is tiring enough.  And on top of that, I don’t want to make a faux pas at the temple, as I already feel like I stick out.  There are other tourists here, but our number is dwarfed by the hundreds and hundreds of school children.

I only have about an hour left so I buy a ticket for a ‘boat ride’, which is in a building just past an enormous fountain which is also closed for maintenance.  I wait in line with about 200 school children and practice balancing looking comfortable traveling alone, but not aloof.  It’s harder than you’d think.  After being led into several different rooms where we reform lines I meet up with two other Americans—Raj and Dana—and get into the large boat of the English speaking tour.  We’re the only ones on the boat.
The tour is about the advanced nature of the Vedic society that predated what we now know to be India.  I find the level of advancement of such societies to be incredibly interesting, but towards the end, this starts to sound more like an India pep rally than a historical presentation.  India was the first democracy.  India had the first colleges.  India beat Pythagoras to the theorem by 300 years.  Indian surgeons were performing plastic surgery and doing nose jobs 3000 years ago (seriously.  There were mannequins holding chisels up to the noses of other mannequins lying prostrate.  India had the first astronomers.  India had this. India had that.  And this always harkens back to my first question with most of these societies—why did it stop?  If the Vedic society was already one that would seem to be as advanced as ours, why did it stop some time ago?  Why didn’t it continue to advance us past the point where the west started if the western forces were busy herding sheep and mastering fire while this society was knocking out nosejobs and besting Pythagoras by three centuries?

I have to turn down Raj and Dana’s invitation to go on to the next show as it’s time for me to leave; I’m already going to be late by the time I collect my things from the security room, and I still have to pack for the weekend back in Gurgaon.  Security goes well, and I exit the complex, am only asked for money once, and call the driver.  He says something.  I say something back.  He hangs up.  I call back.

He says something more frantically.  I think he says ‘front’.  I have no idea.  He does say ak minat, and I know that means “one minute”.  So I wait out in front and pretend not to hear the guard with the assault rifle tell me to move along.  I smile at him and give the thumbs up, playing the stupid foreigner card to buy some time.  I don’t want to leave this place because it’s the best shot of finding the cab and I’m surely going to end up being harassed if I take a side street in such a tourist-popular area.

The cab then whips around the corner and the driver honks to me, motioning for me to get into the car before we are both lost in a hail of bullets.  I get in and we drive back to Gurgaon.

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

Due to laziness or a sense of irony I order Papa John’s for dinner tonight.  I’m in a flurry of packing, which is me being dramatic.  I pack jeans, a pair of shorts, and a couple of tshirts and call it a done deal.  But I have calls to make, and don’t feel like navigating another takeout place. I order a cheese pizza and am thankful that I’ve ordered a medium.  It has 6 pieces and is about the size of an American small.  But I’m not that hungry anyway.

Shubh calls at about 6 to confirm plans, and after a quick stop at the ATM to take out 10,000rps for the road (sounds impressive, doesn’t it?), we head out for the Pushkar Fair out in the desert state of Rajistan.  Because night driving is slower, the roads are worse, and the driver doesn’t really know the area, it’s going to take at least 6 hours of driving.  We should reach the camp at about 2am with stops.

To make the journey even more exciting, we don’t really have a place to stay, which seems to not bother Shubh.  The beautiful thing about traveling and having a marginal ability to write is that situations like this threaten to be horribly uncomfortable, but such hardships will pay off 10-fold when it comes to having a story to tell.  We could bed down with a herd of camels for all I care.

The actual plan is that we will stay in a canvas tent in Pushkar Fort, which have been specially resurrected for the camel fair.  The contact says he doesn’t have room, but Shubh is confident he can make room, and on top, we have a reference from a guy at work who was there this last weekend—a fact that Shubh will use in the negotiation.

The car we rent this weekend is a larger model by the region’s standards-about the size of a Ford Focus—and I am grateful for the extra legroom.  The initial driving goes well, or as well as can be expected for driving in India on a Friday night.  The driver is, in fact, a cab driver, though a slightly more conservative one, and he does not speak English either.  Shubh and I talk for a while, then stare out at the landscape whizzing by, and eventually nod off.  Before long the driver is tapping my leg—there’s a toll ahead, so I give him money.  Since the state of Haryana and Rajistan have different taxation and fees for commercial vehicles, I end up reaching in my pocket quite a bit over the course of the drive.

At the suggestion of the driver we stop for dinner at a roadside hotel just beyond the border of Rajistan.  The place makes me think of restaurants in the Indiana Jones movies.  The dining room is a barren place with white walls and dark wooden chairs and tables.  Locals sit around eating and talking beneath the slowly rotating ceiling fans and look up for a moment when I walk into the room.  Then they resume, uninterested.  I don’t think we’re the first tourists the cab driver has brought in here.

We order a dinner of chicken kabobs, a masala, and roti.  It’s very good, and we’re doing the best we can to hedge our bets and eat only the things least likely to get me sick.  The last thing I need on a 6-8hr car ride is Delhi Belly.  But the food appears good, is reasonably priced, and is filling.

Back in the cab it takes us a matter of 30 minutes of driving before Shubh and I both completely pass out, which is a difficult thing to do as a passenger here.  Driving in America, the people I’ve spoken to say, is funny to them.  The idea that one can space out is a completely foreign concept, as are the concepts of staying in your lane or smooth roads.  The driving here is hectic and loud.  Even on the highway there is a lot of swerving, and since it’s night in a more rural area, the usual incessant honking has actually gotten louder as most of the vehicles we’re moving between are large trucks carrying grain, marble, or gasoline.  Driving requires absolute attention and begets constant feedback.

As the night gets later I wake up to the sign of more noise than usual and am startled to see a number of large headlights moving towards us.  With about 15’ to spare, the driver slips next to another truck in our lane and shoots the gab between the two truck heading in opposite directions.  I decide it’s better if I sleep though this.  I also wish there were seatbelts in the back.

We stop at a truck stop and get out to stretch.  This is my first (of many) introduction to this type of structure.  Here there are numerous tables, cots, and snackfoods—it appears to be an Indian take on a truck stop, as there are several drivers parked there.  What’s most interesting to me is the fact that there is no real shelter from the elements here; storefronts lack a front wall.  Structures like this are comprised of the other three walls (with a small back wall) and a roof.  Men sit around a campfire in front, wrapped in blankets and sporting colorful turbans.

The look of the people here has changed.  What I think is just an instance of rural vs. city is actually a real change between the states.  Rajistani men, Shubh tells me, wear colorful turbans (where as Sikhs are the only habitual head wrap-wearers in the city), sport bushy curled mustaches (which I had been admiring), and have ear and top rings in both ears.  On top of that, this is a very Muslin state, so the conservative influences are stronger in this region, and restrictions on alcohol are almost absolute.

We drive on and Shubh continues sleeping, and I occasionally try to catch some shut eye myself, but there’s really no point.  Each time I drift off the horns wake me up, and when they don’t, the tapping on my leg signifying a toll does.  We eek along towards Pushkar and eventually reach the down around 2 in the morning.

The problem we now face is the fact that we don’t know where the fort we are staying at is, and no one seems to be able to tell us.  We drive around the streets, which are absolutely littered with sleeping people.  It looks like a college campout, if students wore turbans and traded camels.  We drive from building to building, and finally into the center of town where people are sleeping so packed together than their sleeping blankets look like carpeting.  To make things more difficult, there are cows all over the road, and our cab driver lays on the horn constantly.  I feel badly, but the lumps under the blankets don’t move.

Eventually we make it to the fort at about 3am.  Our contact guy leads us to our tent and bids us goodnight.  To call it a tent is a bit of a dressdown—it’s a house with canvas walls.  Covering an area of about 20’X30’, the tent has two twin beds, several sitting chairs, and indoor plumbing and a washroom behind a second canvas wall.  Behind the wall, I see, is a full porcelain western toilet.  This is hardly roughing it, but I’m too enamored with the idea of a tent with indoor plumbing.  With barely a thought left in my head, it hits the pillow and I am unconscious in less than a minute.

By Linda Tancs

It’s humpback heaven in Pushkar this weekend in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.  Pushkar Festival brings together camel traders and their ornately festooned charges ready for their close-ups.  A beauty pageant of sorts, the camels are paraded around for throngs of admiring onlookers, including curious tourists.  Of equal interest is Lake Pushkar, a must-see for shutterbugs.  Hindus believe that the lake was created by Lord Brahma (their creator of the universe) when he dropped a lotus flower to earth as a result of battle with a demon.  The lake is beset with ghats for bathing away sins (like Varanasi) during this high festival.  So how best to reach this holiest of places in the Rajasthani desert?  The nearest airport in Jaipur is 86 miles away.  A network of bus service will get you to Ajmer, just 7 miles away. The local bus ride through scenic mountain ranges will get you to your final destination in a half hour.

Pushkar is about 150 km from Jaipur .So if for some reason you wish to hurry back to Jaipur on the same day you arrive there it can be done. So I planned to do just that. Even before I start the journey I am planning how it will end. That is a result of the rushed lives we all lead. It is just one more habit we can not seem to break.

Jaipur-Ajmer and Pushkar are very well connected, especially during the Cattle Fair time. So I put my camera in a bag and took a Meri Car Taxi to the Sindhi Camp Bus Stand to catch a Deluxe Bus to Ajmer. I was in Ajmer at about 6 am in the morning. I am glad to say it was a good trip and economically priced too. Only thing to note was that the citizens follow the first come first served rule and not the seat number rule when they take their seats on the bus. It worked this time to every body’s satisfaction. Or maybe they were not awake enough to fight.

At Ajmer I asked the ticket seller to sell me a ticket to Pushkar on one of the jam packed buses parked there. He answered reasonably enough that he had already sold 70 tickets on the bus to pushkar  and asked me where I planned to sit in the event that he sold me a ticket. He told me to wait for the next bus. I finally got a ticket on the next bus which started on its winding route through the Aravalies to Pushkar after a long wait. Though the holy town is only about 15 km from Ajmer we reached there about 7 am. The town was already coming alive for the long day ahead. I bought a local newspaper in hindi and avoided drinking tea some body pushed in my face and went into the town towards the ghats.

I was surprised to see dried mud and small ponds of water. Somebody told me for 21 rupees he would sprinkle a little holy water on me to purify me as it was the holy ritual one had to follow before visiting the Brahma Temple. I avoided him too and went on to the Brahma Temple. After taking off my shoes and socks and buying flowers and prasad I tried to go in but they wanted me to deposit my bag with the camera into a free clock room which was not open yet. The Prasad seller did offer to keep the bag but you know how it is when you are traveling alone nowadays – you try not to trust anybody. So I went on again. The shops were opening up. People were trying to display their wares in the best possible way. As I went along I kept noticing temples and dry ghats. What struck me was our piety has nothing to do with a full Sarovar. It is with in us. It is good to have a full tank of water and good to take a holy dip but we can still feel we are purified even with a few drops of holy water sprinkled on us when we have to.

I came to a couple of giant wheel standing silent and empty with numerous other rides. I saw a couple of giant gas balloons giving rides to their foreign guests. I saw a craft mela and a stadium where the animal competition would be held during the day and came to the animal compound. There were Camels and Horses and tourists in a big number. I took a few photos and got directions to the Helipad on the Devnagar-Banseli Road where my friend had put up Swiss Cottages in the style of Bhadrawati Royal Camps. I got to the Helipad but there were no Swiss cottages, instead there was a big elevated road there. Later on I found out that the road is where the railway tracks are to be laid and the cottages were on the other side of the elevated road.

I had some breakfast and headed back to the Ghats again had some holy water sprinkled on me and went to the Brahma Temple and had darshan.

I came out and took some more photos of the colorful and diverse wares on display in the markets. I remember a woman exhorting her husband in a loud voice to buy her a camera and just then I saw some Kodak film cameras on display too. The gap between haves and have nots is narrowing, and rightly so too. Some of these photos are enclosed here.  I had some pakoras and a cold drink as a snack. And headed back for Jaipur after 5 pm and was home for dinner after a day well spent.