Pushkar

The sight of a large group of camels being herded along the side of the road, along with a developing sparseness and dryness in the landscape hearalded our approach to Pushkar. I don't know what it is, but camels are kinda cute. They smell rank, can be bad tempered, spit, piss and shit without concern for where it lands, yet they're still lovable. I guess it must be akin to the attraction of the Aussie male.

Pushkar is held to be a holy place by Hindu's. It was disapointing though that the idea of spirituality is often hijacked at these kind of spots by opportunists. At the lake in Pushkar, a local man became irate (as the guide book said they would) when we wouldn't give him money for him to bless us, saying that we obviousley didn't care about the welfare of our families and friends. It put a dampener on the lake viewing, our tour guide was busy being a chocolate teapot. However that "spiritual bully" has to live with the negativity of his actions.

Although I've had cold showers for 10 out of the last 12 days (I'm fatalistic about the possibility of number 11 tomorrow) and have experienced some rank toilets, I have also been spoilt at times. This is the view from the hotel pool on our first night in Pushkar.










Night two in Pushkar and our "night in the desert", was a little bit less than we expected. Think of a sleep over in a sandpit and you'll be on the money. It was good fun though.










Slightly different to expectations as well was our camel "safari" which lasted for all of about 90 minutes, judging by the stretched hammies and groins around the place it's probably a good thing we weren't on camel back for two days. The decidely uncomfortable pilot of "Jungle Johnny" sitting in front of me is Maureen, forever known by her offical Indian title of "Mama Chapati".










Later, some of the camels wanted to make a statement about the hefty blokes they'd been forced to carry...










Others were content to just sit and look pretty for their glamour shots...














That night after a candlelit dinner we had a music and dance performance by a group of Indian gypsies.










Unlike the puppet show crowd, these guys went made an effort to really put on an entertaining performance and also looked to be enjoying themselves. The dancers, costumes and music were all good, capped off with a fire-breathing finale.










It wasn't until you got up close that you realised how absolutely petite both the gypsy men and women were, it was like a happy-go lucky Hobbit party.











Cheers!