Pushkar

Pushkar is about halfway between Jodhur and Jaipur, near Ajmer on the map. It's a holy town and a bit of a hippy/backpacker hangout. It was the first time we were really aware of people backpacking, rather than on tours. This meant that though you were still hassled by the locals, they were not as persistent as they realised that we were not loaded, and there were lots of cheap places to eat, unlike the Indian equivalent of tourist motorway services, where we often stopped for lunch when driving through Rajastan. The Pushkar tourist cafes also had "western dishes" which pleased Sarah, with her desire for a change from spicy food. Unfortunately everything was strangely Indian and spicy (spicy pasta, spicy pizza, etc). I'd also began to find it weird how they served pakora. It was generally not as spicy as in Scotland, and was often made from slices of potato, but that wasn't the weird part. While I was used to pakora served with a spicy yoghurt based sauce, or something more delicate, in India it comes with tomato ketchup, even in non-tourist places. Disappointing!

On the way to Pushkar we had an stressful incident where our driver stopped at a dodgy roadside local restaurant, and then ended up with a flat tire. I won't dwell on it but it was not a pleasant days travelling, and then we found out hotel had some building work going on. Thankfully the next day we were able to relax a bit in Pushkar, as there actually isn't much to do there.

Pushkar is basically a small lake will lots of temples and ghats round it. However the temples are active and the only concession to tourists in people trying to get money off you to perform a random ritual they've just made up on you. So we had a look at one temple and decided it wasn't worth the hassle to see more, and unfortunately the lakefront is basically taken up by temples. However some of the cafe's have roofs where you can actually see some of the town from. Another thing about pushkar, that you can no doubt see from the photos, is that it has quite a few monkeys around! There were not as evil seeming as those in Jaipur.