The Sacred Lake of Pushkar

And so we were alone.

And when I say alone, I mean, we were abandoning the group (and the amazing Tucan Travel tour leader) to go onwards by ourselves for a week.

(Although, truth be told, we were to meet up with the group the day after but this doesn't quite have the same dramatic effect.)

So we boarded a bus. Naturally, I slept. And after 4 or so hours the bus came to a standstill. Unfortunately, not at the place in which the bus was meant to stand still.

We got out. The bus driver (who had been tipped to look after us) had acquired selective hearing it seemed and soon Faye and I were really alone, on a dusty road with REALLY heavy backpacks after having stocked up on Christmas presents in Jaipur.

We began to walk.

The bags were heavy.

It was dusty.

It was hot as a bitch.

So we went into a hotel, pretended not to have phones and got the hotel man to ring our 'contact'. The amazing thing about having an amazing tour leader is that they know people. And these people are helpful. This particular man, whose name I have momentarily misplaced, told us not to worry, he would be along in a minute to give us a lift to the hotel.

The lift was on the back of a motorbike.

With no helmet.

Apart from a near death experience for my Karrimor bag, a fun time was had by all.

We got to the hotel, where we were greeted like old friends.  We had come for a very important couple of days.  'Twas the Pushkar Camel Festival. Now Pushkar is a stunning city to visit even when the festival isn't happening. It is in the desert, set around a beautiful lake and the lake is considered sacred. According to Hindu mythology, the demon Vajranabha was going to kill Lord Brahma's children and so Brahma killed  the demon with a lotus-flower. As the petals fell to the ground, a spring of water emerged and the lake of Pushkar was born (flower (pushpa) from hand (kar).) Pushkar is in fact the only site in India to house the temple of Brahma. There are 52 bathing ghats and around 500 Hindu temples surrounding the lake. Pilgrims come from far and wide to bathe in this sacred place and the water is said to cure skin disease and cleanse people of their sins.

There are two photos below. It clearly said in painted block capitals on a wall TOURISTS NO PHOTOGRAPHS but I couldn't help a couple of sneaky ones. I got told off. I have never liked being told off, but this was worth it. As they are particularly sneaky, they don't capture the full magical chaos of the bathing pools. There was one for men and a couple for women and children and it was just madness. Beautiful madness.

We had been warned to keep our hands closed at all times. As soon as we opened them, somebody would place a flower inside our hand and we would be obliged to place it on the lake as an offering. We soon found a way to cheat the system. We found flowers from the floor and went past the guards with our flowers to the lakeside where we obligingly removed our shoes and began to wander amongst the vast array of bright orange floating flowers and the splashing pilgrims.

But we were foiled, and soon accosted by men in white robes. 'Priests' they called themselves. I was cynical. Faye was cynical. We knew that at some point they would ask for money. But they were insistent.

We sat by the lake. Or in fact, we sat on a kind of stone wall between two lakes. There was no escape. We chanted back everything they said in Hindi. They put rice and coloured dye on our foreheads. We put our flower into the lake and prayed for our family. The "priest" produced a coconut.* He said "lovely jubbly, sound as a pound". I felt edgy. He asked me how many members of my family I had. 3, said I. He asked me to pay some money for the upkeep of the lake or orphans or something. I was assured nothing would go in his pocket. I had had a jolly old time and it was an interesting experience. So I offered him some rupees. Apparently not enough. He said 'you joking?'. I said 'no'. It went on. I got up to leave. He asked me for £5-10 per family member. I said he should stop being rude. He then wanted my original donation offer back. Not on your nelly. It is never nice to have an altercation. Especially when you have walked straight into it. We left shame-facedly

But still a bit smug. Because we each had a bindi.

To be continued...



* I am still unsure as to to the significance of said coconut.

iPads are for Christmas, not for life.

This is less of a post and more of a musing.

Today I moved into the digital world further by getting an iPad. To be fair, I didn't buy it. It was a rather lovely gift. I hold my hands up and say that I have never had an iPhone. It was also years before I got an iPod - classic Cotton family, we got the cheaper version - A Creative Zen.

 My first phone was one of those sagem brick numbers -looked a bit like a silver kidney bean with a fat aerial. You had to hold each key down to move between letters. Thought I was the bees knees when I got my mitts on a Nokia 7210. 3210? Pfft.

The point is, I am now surrounded by technology. I am writing this on the iPad, I am watching BBC iPlayer on my laptop and my phone is flashing up with Facebook notifications and emails. My old flatmate would be proud. To him, I am simply The Blonde Girl in the room next door who thinks her computer is broken when actually it simply isn't plugged in.

And to him I say this.

1. I have an iPad (and you don't need to plug that in)
2. At least my hair is considered blonde and not rich mouse

But actually, so far it is all a bit overwhelming.  In the setup of this fabulous machine, I was asked to answer a series of questions. I think the reason that Apple is so successful is because they have literally stuck the letter i in front of everything they possibly can.

iAgreed to all the iCloud, iPod, iTunes malarkey but when all's said and done iJustdon'thaveacluehowtousean iPad yet.


iAmtired.


iBidyougoodnight.*




*too much?

The One Where We Did Not Ride An Elephant But Instead Dressed Up in Saris.

Shopping was the order of the day. But first we had to see the fort. Jaighur Fort and the Amber Fort. I say this in a disgruntled way, not for any other reason that we didn't get to ride up there on an elephant.


The reason for this was simple. There were 3 in fact.


Firstly, The elephants aren't well treated
Secondly, a tourist got trampled by an elephant whilst it carried them up to the fort.
Thirdly and pretty significantly.. we didn't see any elephants.


This was soon forgotten because the forts were just beautiful.


Amber Fort is really a palace and is linked to Jaighur Fort by an 8km tunnel so that the palace could be evacuated easily in case of an attack. Jaighur Fort has the biggest cannon in the world which could shoot out a cannonball twenty miles. It was, apparently, only ever used once and that was on the test run. Needless to say, everybody was frightened into submission.

I think the cannon was probably big enough to shoot me out of.

One incredible thing about a lot of the palaces in India, is that although it looks like there are beautiful paintings on all the walls, they are actually inlaid precious gems. 


I'm afraid this post won't include many pictures as you can see them all so beautifully laid out in the last post. But no fear, because my words shall paint a thousand pictures.The gates you can see in the last post's pics were all part of the Amber palace. Each of the four intricately gem-painted gates represented the four seasons. Our favourite was the peacock gate but so many people wanted a photo with it and our guide (a bossy little man) was telling us to move along, so I ended up doing one of those arm-as-far-away-as-you-can-say cheese spontaneous snaps of us. The result was minimal gate and a lot of chin(s). Needless to say, it will not be making an appearance on this blog.


The bazaars were a triumph. Bazaar does in fact come from a Middle Persian word (baha-char) which means 'the place of prices'. We had a lot of fun bartering the cheap prices down to ridiculously cheap prices. But by the end of our stay in India, and I never thought I would say this, we had seen enough ethnic rugs, jewels and wall hangings to last a lifetime. (And this is coming from the girl whose family squeal with delight every time an ESO (Ethnic Scarf Opportunity) occurs - yes, yes, that's right, we do even have an abbreviation for it).


Faye and I had seen spangly bangles on every street. In hundreds of colours and all glistening in the sun. They were an absolute must. We approached a stall in the street. There were some black glittery bangles that I loved. When I tried them on they fell off again. What with me having weedy wrists, this was going to prove problematic. Faye tried them on and they fitted her like a dream. But lo and behold, after turning my nose up at tacky red ones, the man found a smaller pair. He put six on my wrist. Faye asked how they came off. He said 'relax' and took them off. This process was repeated several times. Satisfied we bargained with him and got 6 each for 100 rupees (just over a pound). Smug as smug can be, we strutted off.


I will say now that it is a month since this day in Jaipur. A month. And every time I move, I jangle. 

The bangles will simply not come off my wrist.


I have tried everything.


Dislocation of thumbs and severe bruising seems to be the only option. My friend managed to get one off my wrist but I put in back on again (What? The other five looked silly without the set).


Traditionally, Indian women would wear their bangles until they snapped off. The difference is, their bangles were made of wood. Mine are made of metal.


There is only one thing for it and that is to wear the bangles forever. 


They do look beautiful. 


But, quite frankly, the noise is starting to irritate me. And all of my colleagues.






p.s. We were persuaded to dress up in Saris by two short Indian men. They folded the sheets and then stuffed them down what should have been the front of our trousers. 


Instead, they shoved the sheet down the front of my knickers, all the while saying 'no problem, no problem'. When all's said and done, it was a problem. What I might call, a bit gropey.


Sari looked cool though.

Tiger

When Victoria was little she used to say she was a 'tiger' ©. She meant a 'tired girl'. It stuck.

I am a tiger.

So I can't yet continue with more precious words as they will make no sense. I'll pop a few photos of Jaipur in instead. More words tomorrow.