The temple revellers were even more raucous last night with booming music starting up around < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
10 pm and continuing well into the early hours. Surprisingly we are still able to get to sleep despite the din emanating a few feet from our window. We originally planned to be in Pushkar for three nights, but have decided to stay another night which involves moving rooms, the upside of which is that we will be at the back of the hotel where it is much quieter and hopefully out of earshot of the nightly festivities.
I’m feeling very lethargic today and although the medication seems to be improving my dodgy stomach problem we don’t do very much in the morning. We have lunch at a restaurant occupying a first floor terrace overlooking the main street – an ideal place for people-gazing and just generally watching the world go by. A young sari-clad woman squats with a bundle of cow grass on a cloth in front of her, patiently waiting for customers. Eventually she starts to attract custom from more well-to-do Indians wanting to enhance their karma. For she is selling grass to feed to the cows; and to buy for grass for the cows is to gain spiritual brownie points. Once a sale has been made she takes an arm-full of grass from the small mound and carries it to a group of cows that are gathered down a small side street. As we watch business starts to pick up and soon she is soon doing a brisk trade.
There are plenty of places in Pushkar offering camel safaris into the desert, either on the back of a camel or in a camel cart, for anything from an hour to two or more days. It’s even possible to travel from here to other parts of Rajasthan on extended camel treks of a week or more although I should imagine that’s not for the faint-hearted. Having already braved the back of a camel in Mongolia we decide to try a two-hour camel cart ride. Although, as it turns, which is the more uncomfortable is a close run thing – on balance probably the cart. The desert around Pushkar is not the sea of dunes sort; the countryside may be dry and sandy but it is still predominantly green and peanuts are grown. There is some quarrying of sand for the railway line that is under construction and much of our route has been churned up by lorries and is rather reminiscent of a building site. At one point a young boy trudges behind us for a while serenading us with a scratchy and out-of-tune rendition of Frere Jacques on a stringed instrument played with a bow. We willingly give him some money knowing that he will stop playing as soon as we do. Further on we take a break – for our benefit or the camel’s we’re not sure – and immediately we are joined, as if from nowhere, by two old men and a young boy. The old men both have stringed instruments and bows with bells, the latter providing an added dimension to the music as they tinkle in time to the rhythm. After they have performed their song and we have shown our appreciation in the time honoured fashion, we invited to try the instrument ourselves and I can confirm that even Andy can make a scratchy noise on it, but getting the bells to tinkle in time requires a bit more practice.
We continue our bone-shaking ride over ruts, potholes and generally uneven ground, passed the nascent railway embankment and several makeshift gypsy encampments where people are living in flimsy shelters made from tarpaulins and bits and pieces of cardboard, sacking and the like. Children run out to follow the cart asking for money or chocolate, but in a half-hearted sort of way not really expecting anything; not as tenacious as some we have come across. We stop briefly at a street-side mobile trolley for a cup of chai – coffee in Andy’s case – where men sit around on metal benches chewing the fat. Tea is brewed very sweet, very strong and very milky and served in expresso-sized plastic cups which are simply tossed on the floor afterwards (littering is a way of life in India, no one thinks twice about it).
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