Pushkar

After another early start and a train ride later I arrived in Ajmer. You have to get to Ajmer to get to Pushkar. There is not a lot to see in Ajmer another than a Mosque and have not heard good things about Ajmer, so I proceeded to Pushar. On leaving the railway station I was mobbed by Auto drivers all wanting way too much to get to the bus station. Now I’ve recently learnt of a very cheap way of travelling. In these small towns they have Autos that continually do one route and they just fill the Auto with as many random people as they can and charge 10 rupees each person. So on getting out of the station I was teling them I want a shared Auto to the bus station. They were of course telling me that’s impossible. Eventually one of them told me there are a group of “gore” up ahead and go speak to them. I proceeded on to find two French guys literally SWARMED by drivers. On talking to them I managed to get a 60 rupee fair to the bus station and then would take a bus to Puskar. However a random Taxi guy was quoting 300 rupees (£3) directly to Pushkar so the French guys agreed on taking that. The French guys were in shock as I don’t think they had experienced that before. Anyway they had no accomodation booked either but I found one guesthouse on the net for £5/night private room which had good reviews so proceeded there. Luckily he had rooms.

Pushkar is one of these places that you can escape the craziness of India. It is a very chilled out place and you don’t really feel like you are in India. Pushkar is one of the religious capitals of India and it is said every Hindu should visit Pushkar during their life. So the accomodation I picked had amazing views of Pushkar:

Pushkar is one of the oldest existing cities of India. It lies on the shore of Pushkar Lake. The date of its actual origin is not known, but legend associates Brahma with its creation. Pushkar has many temples. Most of the temples are not very old because many temples were destroyed during Muslim conquests in the area. Subsequently, the destroyed temples were rebuilt. The most famous among all is the Brahma Temple built during the 14th century CE.

Pushkar in Sanskrit means blue lotus flower. Hindus believe that the gods released a swan with a lotus in its beak and let it fall on earth where Brahma would perform a grand yagna (a ritual). The place where the lotus fell was called Pushkar. Pushkar word may be derived from word ‘Pushkarni’ means- lake. It may be derived from word Pushpa means flower and Kar means hand.

The Pushkar lake has 52 ghats where pilgrims descend to the lake to bathe in the sacred waters.

I went exploring with the French guys and we headed to the lake:

I sat down near the lake and a swami came up to me and was telling me how holy Pushkar is. There are 1000 temples, 6000 priests and how Pushkar is one of five holy places in India. He then went on to tell me how I should do the Puja that everyone comes to Pushkar to do and he can perform it for me. I was trying to say no and he said – “okay they are foreigners they don’t want to do the puja, but you are hindu you believe in god don’t you?”. I said “no” and he looked very disaprovingly at me & stopped talking to me pretty quickly.

The ghats:

There are a number of cafe’s around the lake and it’s very tranquil to just sit near the lake. The water is the Ghat is FILTHY and the lake close up also doesn’t look too clean. I have no idea how people bath it them. After walking round we found a Gurudwara and a host of temples.

We also visited the Brahma temple in Pushkar. Again terrorist problems stopped me taking my camera in – but I managed to take some pics on my phone. The temple is one of very few existing temples dedicated to the Hindu creator-god Brahma in India and remains the most prominent among them.

In the guide books we read about this temple on top of a mountain which has a realy good view for Sunset. It was a 45 mins trek but we decided to take an Auto. Little did we know that the Auto only takes you to the base and it’s like 1000’s of stairs to get to the top. The day before in Chittorgarh I had climbed that tower so my legs were a bit fragile but nonetheless climbed to the top (after resting a few times). It was very difficult. I have a feeling I am going to die in Nepal. The worst bit was it got steeper as you got higher up. Anyway evetually got right to the top. I was amazed that there were 60 year old people coming down.

The climb up:

Views from the top:

Thirsty Monkeys:

More Views:

The Sunset:

It was a pretty tiring day – very active after such little sleep. The next day I just sat at a Cafe around the lake and chilled. Sunset on the lake:

I have a train ticket to Jaipur tomorrow. It’s a 11:30am train so thank god no early start. I really liked Pushkar – not a lot to do here but it’s got a very different vibe to the rest of India which I really like. It would be quite easy to spend a week here just chilling by the lake, reading etc etc.