Pushkar

Already more than one week in the past, but let me give you a description of this little town.

Deep in Rajasthan, near a small lake, created by no one else but the gods themselves, lies Pushkar. It only has about 10,000 inhabitants, which is not that much. These 10,000 inhabitants are however focused on one thing; tourism. Or in other words; the money in your wallet.

It is a place were people force you to have a Pushkar-passport. This is a little red string of cloth that you have to bind around your right wrist, after going through some rituals at the lake. This of course involves paying the one that does the ritual, a nice amount of rupees, since this is of course a holy place where money makes the gods very, very pleased. I thought greed was something to detest, but these fake-priests really push you to the edge to do this ritual. Luckily I`m an experienced Jaipurian who knows how to say no, and how to keep it no. Then you also have the small child beggars, who get send out by their mothers every morning to get some money from the white-man's sympathy. I don`t mind them asking me for money. But sometimes they are so persistent, you really want to beat them off of you. Literally. Because they don`t mind holding your arm or pulling the sleeve of your shirt.

My tactic this weekend was to do the same thing to them. Ask them 1000 times for 50 rupees. Pull their sleeves aggressively and consistently. Ask them for biscuits. They get a confused and scared long on their face, and finally decide to leave this crazy tourist alone. It might sound a bit harsh, since they could actually be poor children, but why don`t they ask the Indian people in this town for money? Why is it always the white tourist that is being harassed? It smells fishy, and so I just walk on.

Of course there are also good things about the tourist doom-town of Pushkar. I really enjoyed sitting at the lake-side, drinking a nice mango-lassy, and just chilling. Then suddenly you notice a 60 year old hippy (Pushkar was a hippy-paradise a few decades ago) dancing around near the lake in some sort of a..purple..haze. It is really nice to see somebody so happy, floating around in space and time, near a lake, not worrying about his surroundings. Then again, it is also a bit sad, cause he was pretty much having fun on his own. Maybe he should have moved on. Later we also saw a young Italian girl visiting her (grand) father at this place. He was again completely Indianised with nice long white hair, and of course a beard in the same color. She, I guess, was happy to see her family again and talk to him.

Also nice the next day was the climbing of one of the hills in Pushkar, to have a perfect view of the sunrise. We got up at 4:30 to walk to the top of the hill, which was a pretty tough climb. around 5:30 we arrived there, and were able to witness the beautiful sunrise. After that we went back down. The girls went shopping (although they did not buy a lot) while me and another guy went relaxing at the hard rock cafe (which was playing Hindi music). For the first time in India I fell asleep at a cafe, and it was brilliant. Never did I feel so relaxed in India..and it happened in Pushkar. Although the city might be as tourist orientated as can be, it is still possible to find some peace here.