From one festival to another

Leaving the large city of Jaipur behind us we headed further west by train (2.5hrs) to the small holy town of Pushkar.

You can't reach Pushkar directly by train, so ours stopped at nearby Ajmer, where we decided to take the local bus on to Pushkar. Getting the right bus was an experience as all we were told was to wait under the clock tower over the road, which was fine except for the mass of small minibuses with numbers but no English explanation of where they were going! We soon gathered a little group of westerners attempting the same mission and between us eventually found the larger bus to our destination.

The local bus to Pushkar

The bus journey took much longer than stated (over a hour instead of 30 minutes) and we were crammed in with the locals quite happily hanging out the door to make sure they got on! Luckily for Julia the women were given priority of seats despite paying only INR11 (11p) and the men INR14 (14p).

The local bus experience!

Chris ended up speaking to a younger Indian girl who had very good English, and once the older ladies on the bus realised she could translate they proceeded to ask how he kept his skin so white and how much they admired his big lips!

After arriving in Pushkar and finding our best hotel yet (Hotel Everest) which was nestled in the smaller streets away from the ghats, we set off exploring.

Pushkar is a holy town situated around a holy lake that was said to appear when Brahma dropped a lotus flower which is where it gets its name Push meaning 'flower' and kar meaning 'hand'. It is a prominent place of pilgrimage for Hindus that come to bathe in the lake at one of the 28 ghats and visit the rare Brahma temple, it being the only one in India.

The view of Pushkar from our Hotel

Regularly throughout the day Indians come to wash or dunk themselves in the water. This makes for quite a colourful and fascinating sight to sit and watch. We were there at what seemed to be peak time as the waters edge was lined with multi-coloured saris and flower petals that were offerings dropped into the water.

Bathers on the banks of the Pushkar Lake

The other reason to visit Pushkar is for its annual camel festival. Located just on the edge of town but only a short walk away (you can walk everywhere in Pushkar) the festival site was being set up.

Alice the camel had one hump!

The annual festival is split across three sections over the course of a week and a half. Firstly its the camel trading, which is what we had come to see. We had read about seeing 50,000 camels, so unless they came and went day on day, which was quite possible given they traveled overnight, I don't think we saw more than a few thousand which was still a lot more camels than I've ever seen in one place!

Camels, camels, camels!

There were short camel rides a plenty (we were saving ours for Jaislamer and the Thar Desert) and at sunset the light made a great setting to wander round the clusters of camels watched over by their camel guides.

Camel guides in their turbans

The second phase of the festival is the 'mela' with fairground rides and fun competitions between the locals and tourists. This began after we had left but  the programme made it clear why it's so popular with tourists...

Camel dance competition
Local vs tourists football match
Indian Groom and Bride competition for tourists
Turban tying competition
Moustache competition
Laughter show (I assume this was comedy!)

A handsome looking camel!

Then all the fun comes to a close on the final day when thousands of devotees wash away their sins and set candles afloat on the lake.

We sadly didn't have the time to stay longer but met many people who had come for the festival. Including our lovely friend Caitlin who we got chatting to at the Hotel Sunset after a lunch stop and ended up on a sunset camel photo session for one last time!

Perfectly posed camels!

We loved wandering up and down the main bazaar, taking in all the smells of the street foods and down the backstreets watching the tailors at work with their sewing machines.

A tailor sewing away in the streets of Pushkar

It was a great place for a spot of shopping too (less hassle than other places) and we found a 'travelling' version of an engagement ring made of silver and moonstone for Julia.

On our final day we we woke at 5am to climb up to see sunrise at the Sarawati temple which was ok as sunrises go but nice to see the town as it was waking up with children heading off to school and the market stalls opening up in the cool of the day.

Sunrise at the top of the Sarawati Temple

After two full days in Pushkar we had easily explored all that this little town could offer and were ready to move on to our next stop...the blue city.