The People of Pushkar

Too many selfies, I know. Sorry

After an early walk into Jodhpur's heaving avenue of cooking items in search of a gift to embellish Jack's father's repertoire, we arrived back at Singhv's Haveli and its wonderfully friendly staff who had booked us our journey to the bus. We boarded a cooky little rickshaw which trundled us to the bus station. Perplexingly, we were driven to a roadside stop to wait for a small and ridiculous people carrier which then took us about half a kilometer down the road to another bus stop to board another coach. The Tata branded little bubble vehicles can hold perhaps 4-5 people in the back, although locals are more to likely squeeze 8-9 aboard the little tottering chassis which sways precariously over the small and narrow wheel arches, notably more on corners. It is a little noddy cart we've ridden in a few times at various points in India with amusement, while harbouring the quiet unspoken concern of rolling...

The dusty old bus felt, if possible, more dilapidated than almost any we'd ridden so far, but matched the arid sandy landscape we were whizzing through within it. The only event to stir us from lazy hazy starring out the grubby semiopaque windows was when Jack's arm, which had been resting happily out the open window in support of his camera during photo shots of the transit, was covered in a reddish paste of warm chunky matter. I happened to be dozing blissfully unaware beside him when I was woken to tidings of the terrible trojectory which had splattered disgustingly down his arm. A portly old woman on the bed bench seats above had hideously hockd up either a horrifying hunk of her lunch or perhaps been ridding herself of the repugnant remnants of pad tobacco she had been loathsomely ruminating. I was up in a flash and emphatically rebuking the puking

Amazingly amused after 'the ordeal'

monstrosity of a woman for her impetuous purge and was met with an insolent smile and what really felt like feigned incomprehension, accompanied by a smile. The only utterance to emit from the perpetrator and her cohort was a redundant 'mind out' in poorly pronounced English from her male accomplice. With any further fury futile and falling on oblivious ears I studiously set to desperately disinfecting an impressively calm Jack, and committed my only act of littering on this entire trip whilst ejecting the tainted wet wipes with disgust out of the window. Sorry Mother Nature, but this was an emergency...

We were dropped on the road side, in the middle of nowhere again, beside another confused Swedish couple, and after half an hour of bewildering dialogue with locals we found a bus station to take us to Pushkar. We arrived following a surprisingly smooth half an hour journey having witnessed a glorious iridescent sunset from the windows of the busy bus which cost about 7p to ride. We opted for modest lodgings, spending £3 per night this time, following the opulence of Jodhpur. The little homestay which we were shown to by a small friendly man had a magical little fairy lit rooftop terrace which overlooked a little street that connected us to the small town centre. From the vantage point in this cosy rooftop restaurant we saw a wedding procession directing a devillishly dapper groom riding triumphantly on horse back. The crash of sound reached our ears ahead of the sight as a more than ample marching band beat their drums and blew their horns furiously, followed by dozens of men holding giant torches ablaze with a thousand brilliant lights which were powered, in all honesty, by long, trailing electrical lines linked to a generator on the back of a truck which tailed along behind. Pretty funny watching such an opulent display with mad behind-the-scenes guys running frantically around. We ventured down into the fray and after a brief back alley arm wrestle with some whiskey swilling locals found a small garden restaurant which we slipped into and sipped cocktails with clay oven cooked pizzas laughing shamelessly hard at our relentless repertoire of in-jokes that have been developing infamously over the weeks. Anyone sat in close proximity probably hated us for our rubbish sense of humour, but they keep us in stitches, and that all that matters. Right?

Made it! AND before 7am

We woke at 5am to scoot off to a small mountain South of the town, and climbed hundreds of crumbling stairs in the dark to seek a lofty vantage point for sunrise around 7:30. As first on the scene alongside our climbing partner Martin, from Germany I think, we watched a small and steady stream of sweaty adventurers arrive over the following hour, before witnessing the magnificent orange glow of the unobstructed sun breaking over the majestic misty mountains in the distance. Spying Pushkar from above displayed its central lake beautifully, and made it easy to navigate the little street which fanned out around when we were back on the ground later.

A group of calm black-faced langur monkeys joined us for the event and we sipped chai together in earnest appreciation of an ethereal morning. 

When back on the ground we visited a temple dappled with ancient coin inlays and were forced into a slightly manic pooja offering, sort of begrudgingly tossing spices and flowers into the lake before being forcefully implored to leave a donation. The pushy religeous displays unfortuantely wear a bit thin after the 10th or 20th thousand time. We circumvented the lake dipping into a spectrum of handicraft and hippie shops to pickup gifts and garments and ate some delicious vegetarian street food from a chirpy man assisted by his giant smoking pan. The friendly kitchen guys even helped me divide up a pineapple I'd been hopefully carrying around, and we shared it accordingly. A group of pretty gypsy girls adorned in beautiful saris and sparkling jewels took a slice sharing their sugar cane whilst we discussed the possibility of a dance class late in the afternoon. Should've gone really, mainly to see Jack and his robust beard dragged around on the dance floor in the middle of the day by a clan of zealous gypsies The blistering sun beat down on our backs as we rounded the far side of the lake and crossed some whimsical white-clad holy men walking with sticks and exchanged a cheerful Namaste. Having learned enough Hindi to offer a friendly 'app kay see hang' or 'how are you' not only seems to mean we get less burned during financial exchanges, perhaps decreasing our tourist price inflation by a sizable percentage, but also conjours convivial connections during brief hellos with passers by. Possibly the best picture Jack has take so far was of the proud and jovial gentleman with seriously sagacious white mustache and beard combos modelled happily in front of the lake. We bid fond farwells, strolled in opposite directions, and executed acute high fives when we'd checked out the stellar photo. Once Jack's gone through ghe 4,000 pictures he's taken so far (honestly) we'll be able to revisit the moment.

At 4pm we had a date with  the gypsy camp on the edge of town. Jack had met a guy when filling up our bike with petrol and we were invited to go back and hang out. We sat with Vijay and a constant stream of crazy kids peeking their heads round the edge of the simple tent where we were sat drinking chai, giggling, pointing and practicing their English - which gave us the perfect opportunity to practice our awkward Hindi much to everyone's rapturous delight! Vijay was such an inspiring 21 year old who had befriended an American woman years ago, and set up many of the camp kids in private school with the help of her funding. His vision for his extenxed family and friends which encompasses every member of the large camp was so admirable and he was so enthusiastic, we were truly touched. He even had a beautiful girlfriend from Dursley Chime a few miles from home in Poole, who had spent a few months in Pushkar and fallen in love with the camp and its mischevious kids. Small world! We were marched around playing a myriad of hilarious games, spinning gleeful children wildly and sometimes dangerously with every step, not that anyone seemed to mind at all. My favourite little guy was the tiny spikey haired nutter who I nicknamed Coconut, for his unruly do. During

Coconut

every round of tag or Hindi chanting group games we played, inevitably I was mercilessly picked on and finished the afternoon covered in sand and dirt having fallen over, alot. We finished off a few more cups of chai and some delicious spicy aloo (potato) and left feeling utterly inspired by the enthusiasm of the children and the application of Vijay's aspirations. Being surrounded by people with so little, but such alot of energy willing to share everything was a humbling experience. Jack took some wonderful pictures of the gorgeous children smirking cheekily and thought it would be cool to contribute with proceedings from a future exhibition perhaps... Feeling elated and energised, we had a hilarious dinner at Sixth Sense, where we laughed way too much perhaps more affected by the infectious mischief of the michevious children. Nothing to do with the enormous beers.

The owner of our bedsit and his little son/ nephew/ cousin were hilarious. When we arrived home slightly sozzled, the elder yet alarmingly small manager slumped heavily into Jack's arms after a seriously fuzzy, misjudged knuckle bump perhaos having had too many gins or too many jazz cigarettes. Who knows. We propped the little guy back onto his shakey legs and slipped quietly away from the confusing and stilted conversation that was developing. Mid-morning the little pre-pubescent one was watching ostentaciously loud moderate to hardcore porn on his tablet slack-jawed in the middle of the restaurant whilst I sat stunned beside Jack who was talking on Skype. Having finally removed myself from that situation and settling our meagre bill, we made our way back to the camp with our bags on our backs and a sack full of sweets and biscuits to say our fond farewells. Then we hopped reluctantly on a bus and were immersed in a moment of queit abandon reflecting on all the characters contained in the little village we were leaving.  Bound for the train station, we began our journey to a little town called Bundi which we had randomly selected with an iny-miny-miny-mo technique for a stop off on our way to Ranthambore national park for some tiger hunting! Poor choice of verb perhaps, tiger spotting I meant.