Thursday 30 June 2011
Jodhpur or why you should never wear red in India
Steve and I were dropped off in Jodhpur's hotel in the middle of the afternoon after a long drive and were in dire need of stretching our legs so we took an autorickshow and headed for the famous clocktower.
The sheer volume of the crowds was at times silencing the constant horn honking and due to a very approximate map in our guidebook we were not sure 100% where to go.
Now see, this is not good when you're travelling on your own in Asia. In less than a nanosecond we were surrounded by people asking us where we wanted to go... no actually, some of them were asking us where we wanted to go but the majority was just pushing us to go where they wanted us to go. And those were the good ones! We were offered the usual things, suspicious guides for the bazaar, the best of this and that, spices, clothes, bangles, food, hotels and what not.
Touts a part, they were all kind and when we said we were ok thanks, we were left mainly alone...that means with only a circle of 20 or so people around us, which is really less scary than to be the noisy attention of the whole square.
The place we were looking for is a famous spice shop, MV Spices, that according to our book had several emulators, apparently if the name of the shop was MV spices, there were some 15 MG or TS or VB or MN Spice shops to be found in the same area.
Looking at the map was bringing more harm than aid since it located the shop on a spot were there was a huge sign for car parts, we figured that was not what we were looking for and headed on for a bit of exploration. Again pulled aside in every direction by eager helpers we were sometimes even threatened to "sir come here, now!" by shop keepers who were beaconing us with a look of wisdom in their face as if to say "you don't know you want to come to my shop, but I do!".
More by chance than anything else we found it.
Of course it was the only shop not trying to get us inside.
And we understood why as soon as we got inside.
Apparently not only our footprint guidebook was raving about the place, but it was also in LP, Routard and several other famous guidebooks, the shop was literally covered wall to wall with photos of happy and somewhat scruffy looking westerners, depicted in the act of sniffing from small bags of spices.
The young guy attending the shop was very knowledgeable about the limits imposed by australian customs and sealed everything so that we wouldn't have any problem.
Happy with our shopping we then realized we didn't have much more to do since all the sightseeing was planned for the day afterwards.
We then decided to go for a lassi.
The best lassi in town is most certainly the one by the gate, we were seated inside and given 2 masala lassi.
Appallingly sweet and thick, they were really good and well worth the surprised look on the faces of the other lassi-lovers.
As soon as we got out again we took a small tour of the bazaar and were kind of stuck again since we were supposed to find a place where we could get coffee but it seemed to be closed.
Walking slowly towards the right end of the street to avoid the cars and bikes I noticed that one of the normally placid and stoned-by-the-heat cows was looking at me in a not so friendly way.
Now, for those of you who have never been to India or Nepal I have to explain something.
Cows are off course sacred animals and cannot be harmed.
Fair enough.
That means that you can easily find a super skinny cow roaming freely on the streets with a ratio of 1 cow per 4 or 5 people.
And that's a LOT of cows.
Normally they are very peaceful animals, not moving much, crouching on the side of the streets, eating out garbage bags and snoozing the days away.
That's normally.
In Jodhpur this cow was by no means peaceful, not grazing at a garbage bag, certainly not sleeping, it was looking at me as if I had perpetrated some horrible sin against it. It was personal.
I hurried past it and forgot about it in a flash.
Some more walking, some more useless looking at the useless map, we looked at each other and called it a night.
At a certain point I have the unpleasant feeling something is staring at me.
I turn and I see another cow this time with huge horns, really BIG, coming towards me bending down its head, horns in an attack position.
I don't have time to wonder what I might have done to offend the sacred animal, and sacred or not I'm not going to stand there and be impaled, I move away quickly and turn to look at Steve who gets treated in exactly the same way.
And right then I get it! We're both dressed in bright red!!! Those obviously were not cows but bulls and our breezy and inconsiderate use of the red colour right under their noses really did not agree with them!
One more lesson learned, never wear red in India!!!
The sheer volume of the crowds was at times silencing the constant horn honking and due to a very approximate map in our guidebook we were not sure 100% where to go.
Now see, this is not good when you're travelling on your own in Asia. In less than a nanosecond we were surrounded by people asking us where we wanted to go... no actually, some of them were asking us where we wanted to go but the majority was just pushing us to go where they wanted us to go. And those were the good ones! We were offered the usual things, suspicious guides for the bazaar, the best of this and that, spices, clothes, bangles, food, hotels and what not.
Touts a part, they were all kind and when we said we were ok thanks, we were left mainly alone...that means with only a circle of 20 or so people around us, which is really less scary than to be the noisy attention of the whole square.
The place we were looking for is a famous spice shop, MV Spices, that according to our book had several emulators, apparently if the name of the shop was MV spices, there were some 15 MG or TS or VB or MN Spice shops to be found in the same area.
Looking at the map was bringing more harm than aid since it located the shop on a spot were there was a huge sign for car parts, we figured that was not what we were looking for and headed on for a bit of exploration. Again pulled aside in every direction by eager helpers we were sometimes even threatened to "sir come here, now!" by shop keepers who were beaconing us with a look of wisdom in their face as if to say "you don't know you want to come to my shop, but I do!".
More by chance than anything else we found it.
Of course it was the only shop not trying to get us inside.
And we understood why as soon as we got inside.
Apparently not only our footprint guidebook was raving about the place, but it was also in LP, Routard and several other famous guidebooks, the shop was literally covered wall to wall with photos of happy and somewhat scruffy looking westerners, depicted in the act of sniffing from small bags of spices.
The young guy attending the shop was very knowledgeable about the limits imposed by australian customs and sealed everything so that we wouldn't have any problem.
Happy with our shopping we then realized we didn't have much more to do since all the sightseeing was planned for the day afterwards.
We then decided to go for a lassi.
The best lassi in town is most certainly the one by the gate, we were seated inside and given 2 masala lassi.
Appallingly sweet and thick, they were really good and well worth the surprised look on the faces of the other lassi-lovers.
As soon as we got out again we took a small tour of the bazaar and were kind of stuck again since we were supposed to find a place where we could get coffee but it seemed to be closed.
Walking slowly towards the right end of the street to avoid the cars and bikes I noticed that one of the normally placid and stoned-by-the-heat cows was looking at me in a not so friendly way.
Now, for those of you who have never been to India or Nepal I have to explain something.
Cows are off course sacred animals and cannot be harmed.
Fair enough.
That means that you can easily find a super skinny cow roaming freely on the streets with a ratio of 1 cow per 4 or 5 people.
And that's a LOT of cows.
Normally they are very peaceful animals, not moving much, crouching on the side of the streets, eating out garbage bags and snoozing the days away.
That's normally.
In Jodhpur this cow was by no means peaceful, not grazing at a garbage bag, certainly not sleeping, it was looking at me as if I had perpetrated some horrible sin against it. It was personal.
I hurried past it and forgot about it in a flash.
Some more walking, some more useless looking at the useless map, we looked at each other and called it a night.
At a certain point I have the unpleasant feeling something is staring at me.
I turn and I see another cow this time with huge horns, really BIG, coming towards me bending down its head, horns in an attack position.
I don't have time to wonder what I might have done to offend the sacred animal, and sacred or not I'm not going to stand there and be impaled, I move away quickly and turn to look at Steve who gets treated in exactly the same way.
And right then I get it! We're both dressed in bright red!!! Those obviously were not cows but bulls and our breezy and inconsiderate use of the red colour right under their noses really did not agree with them!
One more lesson learned, never wear red in India!!!
Wednesday 29 June 2011
Monday 27 June 2011
Camel Safari (Steve's impressions)
It was still 40 degrees as we left with our driver at 4 PM from Jaisalmer for the hour-long journey south-west to the small outpost of Khuri.
It was here that I was to experience my first camel safari (although a roughly 2, 1/2 hours journey hardly compares to Silvia's 10 hours journey into the Sahara).
Nonetheless we both mounted our respective camels and held on as they first got to their knees and then to their feet.
Each camel was lead by a rope by a local whose commands the camel readily followed.
It seems in these parts camels are suburban dogs and most locals have one.
My pre-conceived perception of camels were that they were smelly, spitty and bad tempered animals.
Maybe our two were on their best behaviour but I found they were none of these.
The trek itself took us through sparsely vegetated open desert country into the dunes, spotting along the way peacocks, antilops, goats and other camels.
The ride itself is quite comfortable with a slight back and forth motion and I certainly was in no pain upon completion.
We settled amongst the dunes, sheltered somewhat from the increasingly hostile winds to watch a sunset that fizzled out to be disappointing.
The journey took us very close to the Pakistani border, so close in fact that Silvia wishes to claim it as another country we have been to, something unfortunately I couldn't agree to.
Anyway my apologies to all camels fans as my perception of them has done an about face although I still have to say that they're quite docile.
It was here that I was to experience my first camel safari (although a roughly 2, 1/2 hours journey hardly compares to Silvia's 10 hours journey into the Sahara).
Nonetheless we both mounted our respective camels and held on as they first got to their knees and then to their feet.
Each camel was lead by a rope by a local whose commands the camel readily followed.
It seems in these parts camels are suburban dogs and most locals have one.
My pre-conceived perception of camels were that they were smelly, spitty and bad tempered animals.
Maybe our two were on their best behaviour but I found they were none of these.
The trek itself took us through sparsely vegetated open desert country into the dunes, spotting along the way peacocks, antilops, goats and other camels.
The ride itself is quite comfortable with a slight back and forth motion and I certainly was in no pain upon completion.
We settled amongst the dunes, sheltered somewhat from the increasingly hostile winds to watch a sunset that fizzled out to be disappointing.
The journey took us very close to the Pakistani border, so close in fact that Silvia wishes to claim it as another country we have been to, something unfortunately I couldn't agree to.
Anyway my apologies to all camels fans as my perception of them has done an about face although I still have to say that they're quite docile.
My camel Lalu and the Thar Desert
My camel's name is Lalu, he's an adult male, with a golden coat, good teeth and placid eyes.
He responds to the command of his master Firoz but when he wants to eat or drink he responds to no one.
He carries me gently amongst the dunes of the Rajasthani Desert, the Thar, up to a point in which we can actually see Pakistan, only 30 km away towards the horizon.
Since we can safely assume we are actually breathing Pakistani air I naughtily suggest we tell people we've been to Pakistan, but it's just a joke since we have no visa to prove it.
Lalu (which by the way I think is a very nice name) doesn't really care about country boundaries, he knows the desert from either sides of the line is the exactly the same, sand, the odd shrub, many antelopes and the odd peacock.
Not much water obviously, although our guides know where to find the wells their ancestors built for them, they dig the water out and drink it, cover them again and leave them there for the next group.
Indeed it's not just the two of us, but the desert is so big that there could be the whole population of Delhi and you would still feel cosy.
When we stop to wait for sunset Lalu regurgitate a bit of grass and chews, chews chews, chews.
It's a chewing machine really!
By observing his teeth I wouldn't have thought he had much of chewing power but he goes for it big time! And regurgitates, and chews again.
It's hypnotising! I sit repaired from the wind and observe him taking life one step at a time.
He probably knows we're soon heading back to the resort but right now the most important thing is crouching on the sand and enjoying the views.
Steve's camel is not as classy. She's peeing and pooping on the spot and then sitting on top of it.
We laugh at that, thinking that in some ways it's a mirror of what we've seen so far.
Oh the humanity!
We've been dodging so much crap of any possible and thinkable kind in the last few days that the streets of Jaisalmer look perfectly clean to us and we can't help asking our guide why the reason for the almost compulsory cleanliness.
Jaisalmer has 7 Jain Temples and Jainism, seen as a form of extreme Buddhism from non-hindus, practices extreme measures to preserve the life of any living thing.
Jain believers go around barefoot and they swipe the ground with a straw broom in order to avoid accidentally killing any insect that was on their way.
Not only that, they do not eat anything that comes from below the ground since they say that by unearthing f.e. the potatoes they would kill the creatures living attached to them.
When they go inside their temples to pray they wear a scarf around their mouths since they don't want to inadvertently kill any fly they might swallow.
These are just the superficial facts about Jainism which is a very deep and strong faith, based on the extreme application of ahimsa (non-violence) precepts.
I've always been fascinated by Jainism and I take in as much as possible of this faith, raptured by the elegance of their temples.
But none of this would matter to my Lalu.
I've grown affectionate to my camel. I'm completely in his hands (well.. paws really), since with a jerk of his head he could easily scroll me off his back.
He walks gently instead, as if knowing that compared to him I'm a fragile creature.
Sunset is a bit hazy because of the heat but Steve and I have a good time taking photos and relaxing on the sand dunes.
After that a nice pepsi back at the resort and off we go to the hotel for some hindi soap opera (yes we've become addicted now!).
He responds to the command of his master Firoz but when he wants to eat or drink he responds to no one.
He carries me gently amongst the dunes of the Rajasthani Desert, the Thar, up to a point in which we can actually see Pakistan, only 30 km away towards the horizon.
Since we can safely assume we are actually breathing Pakistani air I naughtily suggest we tell people we've been to Pakistan, but it's just a joke since we have no visa to prove it.
Lalu (which by the way I think is a very nice name) doesn't really care about country boundaries, he knows the desert from either sides of the line is the exactly the same, sand, the odd shrub, many antelopes and the odd peacock.
Not much water obviously, although our guides know where to find the wells their ancestors built for them, they dig the water out and drink it, cover them again and leave them there for the next group.
Indeed it's not just the two of us, but the desert is so big that there could be the whole population of Delhi and you would still feel cosy.
When we stop to wait for sunset Lalu regurgitate a bit of grass and chews, chews chews, chews.
It's a chewing machine really!
By observing his teeth I wouldn't have thought he had much of chewing power but he goes for it big time! And regurgitates, and chews again.
It's hypnotising! I sit repaired from the wind and observe him taking life one step at a time.
He probably knows we're soon heading back to the resort but right now the most important thing is crouching on the sand and enjoying the views.
Steve's camel is not as classy. She's peeing and pooping on the spot and then sitting on top of it.
We laugh at that, thinking that in some ways it's a mirror of what we've seen so far.
Oh the humanity!
We've been dodging so much crap of any possible and thinkable kind in the last few days that the streets of Jaisalmer look perfectly clean to us and we can't help asking our guide why the reason for the almost compulsory cleanliness.
Jaisalmer has 7 Jain Temples and Jainism, seen as a form of extreme Buddhism from non-hindus, practices extreme measures to preserve the life of any living thing.
Jain believers go around barefoot and they swipe the ground with a straw broom in order to avoid accidentally killing any insect that was on their way.
Not only that, they do not eat anything that comes from below the ground since they say that by unearthing f.e. the potatoes they would kill the creatures living attached to them.
When they go inside their temples to pray they wear a scarf around their mouths since they don't want to inadvertently kill any fly they might swallow.
These are just the superficial facts about Jainism which is a very deep and strong faith, based on the extreme application of ahimsa (non-violence) precepts.
I've always been fascinated by Jainism and I take in as much as possible of this faith, raptured by the elegance of their temples.
But none of this would matter to my Lalu.
I've grown affectionate to my camel. I'm completely in his hands (well.. paws really), since with a jerk of his head he could easily scroll me off his back.
He walks gently instead, as if knowing that compared to him I'm a fragile creature.
Sunset is a bit hazy because of the heat but Steve and I have a good time taking photos and relaxing on the sand dunes.
After that a nice pepsi back at the resort and off we go to the hotel for some hindi soap opera (yes we've become addicted now!).
Sunday 26 June 2011
Saturday 25 June 2011
Bikaner and hindi soap operas
Steve and I are not so shanti in Bikaner.
We've been dropped off by our guide in the centre and I have to call my dad on the phone that obviously doesn't work, we have to check our internet banking but we have no wi-fi at the hotel and I don't want to use one of the internet centres in the city just in case there's no safe connection.
On top of that our bathroom at the hotel is full of giants ants and there's no toilet paper and it's way away from the centre so we will have to take tuk tuk back and we're not sure they will understand the name of the hotel (which to be honest we don't even remember that well).
Anyway we manage to do everything we wanted to do, we also manage to find a restaurant our guidebook praised and we had a nice meal for less than 4 dollars.
But as soon as we get back to the hotel I get sick, I don't know if it's been the food or the fact that I had a couple of coke bottles or the insecticide that they sprayed in the bathroom to get rid of the ants.
Fact is I'm on our bed looking miserable and Steve tries to cheer me up by switching on the tv.
Bollywood becomes very soon my favourite movie industry!
We switch from channel to channel of comedies, dramas, thrillers and even a horror series, without really understanding what's going on but being mesmerised by what we're seeing.
There's always at least 4 or 5 characters in a room with bland decoration, but the women are always richly dressed in gorgeous sarees and jewels. There's not much acting, especially in dramas, but whole scenes go by with a very intense exchange of stares, gazes, big big dark eyes that communicate every sort of emotions, from fear to anger to delusion, to abandonment to hope.
The horror one has a vampire in it, of course, vampires being so fancy lately, but it's like "Angel" meets "Saw" meets Michael Jackson's "Thriller", cause the actors always manage to insert one dance move or two, a shoulder swing or a hip sweep.
Since we don't speak hindi Steve starts dubbing the drama we're watching pretending it's a comedy about a family dinner where the father wants to play Twister but since he cannot find it he blames the mother who's always cleaning and tidying up.
The father is so upset by this that he walks out of the room causing all the members of the family to look at each other with consternation.
The mother then decides to take action and calls a servant and asks him to go buy another Twister.
The son and the daughter then try to go talk to the father and convince him to make peace with the mother by looking at him and playing with their eyes.
The father refuses to go back and claims he likes Twister very much.
It's so funny to watch it this way that we end up in tears!
We then switch to music channels where I try and learn some of the glamorous moves putting my hands in the air and pretending I'm pushing up a very heavy box, but somehow I don't exactly look like the dancers on tv...
We call it a night since we're both tired and tomorrow we're driving to Jaisalmer and it will be a very long day.
We've been dropped off by our guide in the centre and I have to call my dad on the phone that obviously doesn't work, we have to check our internet banking but we have no wi-fi at the hotel and I don't want to use one of the internet centres in the city just in case there's no safe connection.
On top of that our bathroom at the hotel is full of giants ants and there's no toilet paper and it's way away from the centre so we will have to take tuk tuk back and we're not sure they will understand the name of the hotel (which to be honest we don't even remember that well).
Anyway we manage to do everything we wanted to do, we also manage to find a restaurant our guidebook praised and we had a nice meal for less than 4 dollars.
But as soon as we get back to the hotel I get sick, I don't know if it's been the food or the fact that I had a couple of coke bottles or the insecticide that they sprayed in the bathroom to get rid of the ants.
Fact is I'm on our bed looking miserable and Steve tries to cheer me up by switching on the tv.
Bollywood becomes very soon my favourite movie industry!
We switch from channel to channel of comedies, dramas, thrillers and even a horror series, without really understanding what's going on but being mesmerised by what we're seeing.
There's always at least 4 or 5 characters in a room with bland decoration, but the women are always richly dressed in gorgeous sarees and jewels. There's not much acting, especially in dramas, but whole scenes go by with a very intense exchange of stares, gazes, big big dark eyes that communicate every sort of emotions, from fear to anger to delusion, to abandonment to hope.
The horror one has a vampire in it, of course, vampires being so fancy lately, but it's like "Angel" meets "Saw" meets Michael Jackson's "Thriller", cause the actors always manage to insert one dance move or two, a shoulder swing or a hip sweep.
Since we don't speak hindi Steve starts dubbing the drama we're watching pretending it's a comedy about a family dinner where the father wants to play Twister but since he cannot find it he blames the mother who's always cleaning and tidying up.
The father is so upset by this that he walks out of the room causing all the members of the family to look at each other with consternation.
The mother then decides to take action and calls a servant and asks him to go buy another Twister.
The son and the daughter then try to go talk to the father and convince him to make peace with the mother by looking at him and playing with their eyes.
The father refuses to go back and claims he likes Twister very much.
It's so funny to watch it this way that we end up in tears!
We then switch to music channels where I try and learn some of the glamorous moves putting my hands in the air and pretending I'm pushing up a very heavy box, but somehow I don't exactly look like the dancers on tv...
We call it a night since we're both tired and tomorrow we're driving to Jaisalmer and it will be a very long day.
Friday 24 June 2011
Karni Mata, the world's famous Rats Temple, or how to chuck a perfectly good pair of socks
In our week long trip across the North of India we have managed to cram an average of 3, 4 or sometimes even more sights within a day and this is despite the considerable travelling time between each city.
I must say that each and every one has been far better than described in our guidebooks. But of course we are in India and there was always going to be the odd doozie thrown into that mix.
We discovered that yesterday when just short of the town of Bikaner, in western Rajasthan, we were invited to go and explore the Rats Temple.
Silvia and I are both a little quirky and we thought we have to see this.
We were lead to believe that there wouldn't have been that many rats, actually one of the books says that you can just "occasionally" spot one or two running around, but just in case we put on a pair of socks, after we saw the usual sign "shoes off" at the entrance.
From the outside it looked like any normal temple, bright colours, nice decorations, sandstone pavings, but once inside we were to discover where it got its name.
Literally as we walked inside the courtyard we gazed upon 1000s of rats, some of them resting in a shady corner, or aside door entrances, feeding on bags of grain or scurrying around between our feet.
The sight of dozens of rodents drinking peacefully from large bowls of water and milk was something to behold. And of course the smell, together with the many many pigeons also living there, made it a most romantic occasion...
We were both thankful that at least it was not a spider or a snake temple, rats we manage to cope with.
20 minutes was more than enough to take it all in.
P.S. those 2 pairs of socks are no longer accompanying us on our tour.....
I must say that each and every one has been far better than described in our guidebooks. But of course we are in India and there was always going to be the odd doozie thrown into that mix.
We discovered that yesterday when just short of the town of Bikaner, in western Rajasthan, we were invited to go and explore the Rats Temple.
Silvia and I are both a little quirky and we thought we have to see this.
We were lead to believe that there wouldn't have been that many rats, actually one of the books says that you can just "occasionally" spot one or two running around, but just in case we put on a pair of socks, after we saw the usual sign "shoes off" at the entrance.
From the outside it looked like any normal temple, bright colours, nice decorations, sandstone pavings, but once inside we were to discover where it got its name.
Literally as we walked inside the courtyard we gazed upon 1000s of rats, some of them resting in a shady corner, or aside door entrances, feeding on bags of grain or scurrying around between our feet.
The sight of dozens of rodents drinking peacefully from large bowls of water and milk was something to behold. And of course the smell, together with the many many pigeons also living there, made it a most romantic occasion...
We were both thankful that at least it was not a spider or a snake temple, rats we manage to cope with.
20 minutes was more than enough to take it all in.
P.S. those 2 pairs of socks are no longer accompanying us on our tour.....
Ode to Pushkar
There’s always THAT place.
As soon as we arrived in Pushkar yesterday morning Steve and I looked at each other and we knew.
It’s a feeling of being welcome without the pressure of being expected.
“Dear tourist I’m glad you chose to visit my humble town, but I’m not going to ask you for money, I’m not going to ask you to buy my goods and I’m not going to ask you to book a tour with me. I’m too busy being happy cause I live in the most wonderful place on earth and I’m sorry for you cause you leave tomorrow”.
And we know that they know. And they know we know they know.
So while you try and haggle on the prices at the market without success they look pitifully at you and don’t give in since tomorrow you’ll be gone yes, but there’ll be someone else buying what you didn’t buy today.
And while you visit the temples and the havelis trying to take as many photos as possible, you can’t help but feeling the yearning. “Maybe we should call our tour operator and tell them we want to stay here another couple of days”. But that would throw off the entire trip so you won’t do it, besides that yearning is what’s making this place so magical, if you stayed longer you’d gradually acknowledge all the bad things as well as the good things.
But let’s start from the beginning.
Originally Pushkar was not included in our trip. But Steve and I made some research and found out that the wonderful lake with all the temples and the bathing ghats on the shores made for really beautiful photos, so we looked at a map and we saw that the other place where we were supposed to go to, Mandawa, is at exactly the same distance to Bikaner as Pushkar, so we asked if it was possible to made that slight change of the itinerary and boy are we happy we did!
We were warned though, be careful in Pushkar! The place is full of tourists traps! They will come to you for money, they will force you to pay for prayers, they will harass you wherever you go so we braced ourselves with our toughest look and went outside on our own.
The first brahmin we saw didn’t ask us for money in exchange of prayers, he just said hi.
The first kids we saw didn’t ask us for baksheesh but they laughed at us cause we crossed a holy bridge barefoot and we almost burnt our soles while running and looking for shade.
Then we saw other kids and still they didn’t ask for baksheesh but they wanted some biscuits!
We went to the market and we were not asked to get inside and have a look.
While almost on the point of feeling ignored we started relaxing and changing from a “you’re not going to mess with me, buddy” look, to a “hare krishna, hare krishna, hare krishna, hare hare” look (I actually sung that song when Steve finally decided to shave!).
Our tour guide was also very relaxed, with a good english he explained everything we wanted to know about the Lord Brahma temple and the southern indian Vishnu temple.
We then headed to Sun set cafe for a couple of drinks (sodas, since alcohol is not allowed in the holy city) and enjoyed the magnificent settings over the lake, with a peaceful soundtracks made of kids delighted screaming while splashing in the pools and the quite chatting away of the women.
Looking at how people live their lives we can understand the indian concept of shanti, peace or peaceful.
I doubt you can actually understand shanti anywhere outside Pushkar, but over there it is so strong you cannot help but feel the freedom and swing accordingly.
Oh Pushkar, where have you been all our lives? Shanti shanti!
Wednesday 22 June 2011
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