Old buildings in Pushkar

There are some really old rickity looking buildings in Pushkar, some centuries old.



This is the Shanti guest house.

Doorways lead to all sorts of places.

Some doorways look disused but there is always something behind them - family home, guest house, cafe, shop etc. At least the cow's getting a wee munch!

As the TV series goes 'Who would live in a house like this'.

Another cool looking doorway and my curiosity would love to know what lies behind it.

Some of the alleyways are quite narrow and it's easy to get lost. At least you're never very far from the town square.

This photo just looks cool. If I had a house I would like the entrance to look just like this. I must be a cave woman at heart.

Up the rickity stairs to the Pink Floyd Off the Wall Cafe.

Not as old as the other buildings but the art work is spectacular when you get up close.

A trip to the animal rescue centre

We headed out for the day to visit the TOLFA Animal Hospital (Tree of Life for Animals). It is a charity orginisation founded in 2005 by a British Veterinary Nurse called Rachel Wright. It is in a small village about 20mins drive from Pushkar city. I was a bit wary about going as I tend to get upset in theses places but I had heard that they do really good work and I thought that I might volunteer there some time in the future.



We arrived at a very imposing set of gates but what lay behind those gates was very humbling. We were approached by a volunteer who offered to show us around. What I seen was upsetting but joyful at the same time. The work they undertake is amazing - dog sterilisation to reduce the population of stray dogs, rabies vaccination, 24 hour rescue service for all sick or injured animals, free treatment for all working animals as well as owner pet clinics, education projects targeted at schoolchildren and also owners of working animals so that they can understand better sickness prevention methods such as nutrition and better preventative treatments such as regular de-worming and parasite treatments etc. TOLFA never put an animal to sleep unless entirely necessary. Even stray dogs are treated then returned to where they were picked up, steralised and rabies free.I was extremely humbled when I was taken to the paralysis yard. They have an excellent record of rehabilitating paralysed dogs through physio, care and time.

A wee sick goat being brought into the rescue centre. Theses children have probably walked for several miles to get it there.

The views around were quite stunning.

 

Pushkar

Pushkar is a really chilled place to stay. The absence of noisy polluting traffic is very appealing. It's a very common hotspot for foreign backpackers and Indian nationals. In 2005 it was reported to have 16.12 million visitors of which 60,000 were foreign and yet, unless it is Pushkar's annual camel fair, it never seems that busy.



Fruit and vegetable sellers in the main square.

Flower sellers at the entrance to one of the temples. Hindus buy the flowers to take into the temple to make offerings to the Gods.

This young budding entrepreneur decided to set up his push bike as a shop selling flowers. He sits in that bent down position for hours on end. I can't even get down into that position never mind maintain it!

Heading home in the family 'car' after a day's work.

An old Ragasthani in traditional dress. On the wall, Indian graffiti looks much better than ours.

The chai (tea) stall opposite our guest house. Shiva that owns it is a really nice guy. Great wee place for breakfast, meeting people and passing time sitting drinking chai and watching the world go by. As  you can see there is only a couple of seats so often people just grab a pew on the stairs and the roadside.

This guy has his shop just diagonal to the chai shop. I had to take this photo as it was the only time I ever seen him at his shop. He spends all day in Shiva's chai shop taking to anyone who is also there.

Colin watching the football in The Monkey Cafe.

This chai shop in an institution in Pushkar and is in the middle of the square. It has been there forever.  It's very popular with foreign tourists and when we go to Pushkar, a day doesn't pass that we don't frequent the establishment. It is owned by a family and 3 male members run it. They're quite a crew. The big guy to the left of the photo is one of them. His role seems to be standing in the street, looking cool  dripping in gold chains, bangles and rings and accosting every person that tries to pass him so that they will sit and have a chai.

These are the other two guys that run it. The one on the right side of the photo is the chai maker. He dresses like an old rocker from the 70's and doesn't say much. The one on the left is the star of the show. His role is just to look cool and he has plenty to say. He has the most greased back hair that I've ever seen.

No post about Pushkar would be complete without a photo of monkeys, as they are everywhere. You have to be really careful with them as they're evil (used to be a monkey lover but that romantic notion soon changed after being in India). I know they're evil from several personal experiences with them. One day I was sitting on the roof of Sai Baba guest house drinking chai. Colin was sitting facing me and suddenly started pointing like a man possessed and shouting 'monkey'. I obviously ignored him as I thought he was taking the mick. When Colin started to get up and make a bee-line to the door I thought I'd better look round. There was indeed a very large monkey about 10 feet away from me and it was walking toward me. I jumped up, shouted at it and waved my arms about but it just kept advancing towards me. I ran over to the doorway and picked up a big stone and pretended to get ready to throw it but the mad monkey still kept advancing. Next thing, in a split second, it grabbed my chai and biscuit  and ran off. Obviously it wasn't my good looks and personality that it was after. Looks like Monkey 1- Frances 0.

Jaipur to Pushkar

We left Jaipur the following morning and rode the short journey to Pushkar. The road surface conditions are really good so we got there in good time.



Pushkar lies at the edge of the Great Indian Thar Desert, situated around Pushkar lake. It is deemed a very holy city by the Hindus hence no meat, eggs or alcohol - although eggs and alcohol can be found if you know where to look. There are 52 bathing ghats (a ghat is series of steps leading to a body of water) and it is believed that a dip in this holy lake will cleanse sins and cure skin diseases. I've never been in to find out. I'd rather suffer for my sins and keep any skin conditions I develop than bathe in a highly polluted lake, even though a few years ago they did dredge it an clean it up. Pushkar is a really small chilled place and a very common place for backpackers to head to. Even though it's small it boasts 400+ temples.

One of the temples is called Savitri Temple and is situated at the top of the hill in this photo. It is called Ratnagiri Hill and the one hour walk to get there is worth it, as the views from the top are excellent. Many people head off very early in the morning to reach the top before dawn as the views are meant to be the more breathtaking at that time of the day. We wouldn't know of course as we are never up early enough to see dawn.

Pushkar is one of the oldest cities in India and still looks that way today. Some of the buildings date back centuries. There are no modern built buildings, fast food chain restaurants or crazy traffic. These things give it a really quaint feeling

Although Pushkar is at the edge of the desert there are still a lot of plants and trees surrounding it.

Pushkar is made up of inter-connected narrow alleyways. This photo
shows the one main road that travels through Pushkar. There are no cars or bikes permitted to use this road which gives it a strange sense of quiet as usually Indian roads are extremely noisy and polluted. The only really noisy thing about Pushkar is fireworks. They just fire them off any time of the day or night. There's always someone at it.
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We headed to Sai Baba guest house. Colin has known the owner, Fatu, for nearly 20 years and Fatu is completely bonkers. The guest house is in a haveli where all the rooms look down onto a central courtyard. We got a really nice room on the top floor and headed out to enjoy Pushkar once again. We planned on staying in Pushkar for one week.

Getting over the rail crossing once the barrier has lifted

The last post had a video showing how Indians react when the barrier is down at a rail crossing and the warning lights are flashing to warn people to stay behind the barrier as a train is due imminently. This video shows the chaos once the barrier is lifted. Colin assures me that it is actually orginised chaos and that everyone knows their place. I'm not so sure. To me, it looks like every man for himself.

Mathura to Pushkar

We left Mathura on the 30th October to continue on our way to Pushkar. Our plan was to drive to Jaipur in Ragasthan, stay the night and set off for Pushkar the next day. Instead, while on route, we decided that we were feeling a bit tired so we decided to make it a short day on the bike. We pulled over at a place called Mahwa and stayed the night in a government run hotel. At least we had reached half of our goal as we had crossed over into Rajasthan. 

We have saddle bags on the bike which increases the width the bike - something you have to be mindful of when getting through tight spaces. I wonder how this guy on his push bike manages it.

This load is being pulled by a very small tractor. No maximum load restrictions here.

A cycle rickshaw driver having, no doubt, a well earned break in the shade. It's unbelievable how many Indians pile into one of these at the same time - he can end up with 5 or 6 passengers. The cycle rickshaw drivers have a hard shift.

Underneath this 'walking bush' there is a woman. She had been collecting this foliage for animal feed, tied it into a bundle, hauled it onto her back and set off to walk the several miles home.

When we overtook this 'walking bush' we were glad to see it was being pulled by a cart with two water buffalo at the helm, and not a woman with that load on her back!

A cart with two buffalo pulling a more acceptable load.

A great place to sit and contemplate - right beside the rail track!

You can always tell when you're getting near to Rajasthan as the preferred mode of travel becomes camels.

We have came across many railway crossings on our journey and they're just mental. It's every man for himself. In this video the crossing barrier is down and the warning lights are flashing warn people to stop behind the barrier as a train is due imminently. Indians are so impatient it's unbelievable. They go under the barrier, lift the barrier and just barge across the tracks. The following post will have a video of the carnage that happens when the train passes and the barriers are open. I thought that one video per post was enough for the eyes to take in!

To carry on with the journey.....The next morning we headed off from Mahwa. We could easily have made it to Pushkar but decided to have another short day on the bike and stay in Jaipur for 1 night as we had originally planned. Jaipur is a busy and vibrant Indian city and forms part of the Golden Triangle that many tourists go to India to experience. You could spend several days in Jaipur as there is much to see and do but, as we have been there in the past, our priority was to get a room for the night and something to eat. It is easy to find a five star hotel in Jaipur charging five star prices for a room and not so easy to find decent budget hotels.

With the help of a friendly rickshaw driver and the exchanging of 100 rupees, we found a budget room. It was a run down place so when we were told the room had private toilet, TV, A/C and was very comfortable we took it with a pinch of salt. The room did have all the facilities as promised. The only thing was the A/C didn't work, the TV didn't work, the toilet didn't flush, the fan was as noisy as a fan can possibly get and the bed was hard as a rock. Oh well, it was only for one night!

Starving we headed out for something to eat. It was boiling hot and the first place we came to was a KFC. The deciding factor to eat there was that it had A/C. None of us had been in a KFC for a very long time and, after eating the food, we realised why. At night we fared much better by going to a street cafe and having real chicken cooked by Rajasthanis and served spicy with loads of salad in a big freshly made nan bread - yum. 

Here are some Images of Jaipur from google.

Back to writing the blog

Been a while since I posted, last November by all accounts. It wasn't due to being a lazy git, but due to un-forseen circumstances. In the last post we had arrived in a place called Mathura in Uttar Pradesh where we stopped for the night. Our goal was to get to Pushkar in Ragasthan where we intended staying for 1 week as we both really like the place. We did eventually reach Pushkar but, after staying there for 1 week as planned, I contracted dengue fever . I was very ill for 1 week hence we ended up staying 16 nights in Pushkar. As we had to reach Goa for the 5th Dec to get our flights to the UK, this delay meant we had to alter the rest of our plans for the remainder of the journey. 

We did finally reach Goa but I had post dengue fever fatigue syndrome on the 1 month ride from Pushkar to Goa so the last thing I  felt like doing, after a day on the bike, was writing the blog. We stayed in Goa for 1 week and then went home to the UK for 3 weeks. We left the UK on Boxing Day and returned to Goa, where we stayed for 3 months. Our internet connection in Goa was really bad so I was unable to continue with writing the blog. 

Then we had a month in Thailand to re-new our Indian visas. We returned to Delhi in India on Sat 4th May, got an overnight bus to Manali on Sunday and were back in Vashisht and settled into the house on Monday. Now I have no excuses for not writing the blog as the internet connection here is very good. Well, at present anyway. A lot has happened in the last 6 months so I am going to re-start the blog were I left off, with lots of photos and videos in the posts.