Jodpur and Pushkar
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2009
1
3
Trip End
Mar 27, 2009
Pushkar, Rajasthan, India
Monday, March 9, 2009
We had left to early for breakfast so by 2pm or so I was starving when we pulled into a little town for what I thought was a lunch stop so off I wandered down the road picking up samosas and fruit as I went. As I sauntered back to the bus I saw it was starting to move off as it turned out this had only been a quick toilet stop and apparently Indian buses don't wait on you. I jumped into the moving bus as it passed by to see a rather glad looking Melissa!
We arrived in Jodpur in the later afternoon and managed to find a nice room relatively quickly. After Udaipur Jodpur wasn't really doing it for us I have to say...it was just so hectic with people hassling us at every step we took so we resolved to take in the fort early the next morning and get outta there to hook up with the Scottish girls in Pushkar. Taking in anything early in the morning was always going to be slightly tricky with ultra chilled Melissa but in the end we managed to get breakfasted and out into the streets. The streets were awash with overflowing sewers; not shit type sewers but just wishy washy dishwater type sewers; my only idea on this was that they must only supply water to the city in the mornings which would make sense as the city consisted of 2 million people camped in the middle of a desert. Jodpur is all about the fort which towers over the city majestically. It was definitely well worth coming to town just top see the fort. It even seemed that some Indian women were allowed to see the fort. For the 1st time ever I had one of this little audio tour things for the fort and it was brilliant.
I had put a deposit down on a bus to Ajmir at a tour office in the morning but we got chatting to a local who told us that this bus would drop us way out of town meaning we would then get ripped off getting tuk tuk into town for the link to Pushkar so in the end we jacked off the deposit and just headed out to the local bus station. Within minutes of arriving at the bus station we were on a bus to Ajmir...so much so that I didn't even have time for the toilet. It seems that locals just make way and seats for westerners when you enter a bus. I think this comes down to the fact that the locals buy standing tickets so if you stump up the extra few rupees for a seat you will always get a seat. Still it was a bit of a squeeze with our bags at our feet etc for 6 hours. The locals were all silent until I went for a piss 3 hours in; when I got back on the bus Melissa was surrounded by locals vying for her attention such that she had already had to explain to them that me and her were engaged to be married. It is simply amazing how lecherous the men can be and how this instantly evaporates the minute you say you are married to the girl in question. It turned out that we were surrounded by a bunch of jewelry salesmen who had been down at a camel festival punting their wares to westerners. It was bloody amazing to hear them talking in English, German. French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean as well as their native tongues. They didn't even try to sell us anything and were really nice, buying us tea and snacks in exchange for Mel rolling them cigarettes. Every time someone educated came on the bus they made their way up the bus to try and chat to us. I ended up with phone numbers and email addresses of half of Rajisthan. We arrived Ajmir in darkness and then got a connection to Pushkar on a real;ly small and crowded bus. Fortunately we met a nice lad from Delhi who made sure we got off at the right place and then lent me his mobile so I could ring the girls as the txt messaging system in India appeared to have given up for the day.
It was great to hook up with all the gang again. Pushkar was a funny little place. It seemed to exist mainly for Israeli's to go smoke wacky backy, eat falafel and buy clothes. I phoned ahead to the girls hotel and sorted out a room for Mel and me but by the time we had eaten and made our way up to the hotel the owner was totally whacked out on something and didn't remember my phone call and had put someone else in the room. He offered us a minging store room but in the end we all just squeezed into the girls room for a cosy nights sleep after an entertaining lassi on the roof terrace. We got up at stupid o'clock in the morning and went to catch the sunrise followed by a jump in the tiny swimming pool for me and Angharad. The sunrise was actually quite boring but meant we were up, packed and on the go by 9am. The girls still had their driver so they shot ahead of us while me and Mel jumped on the local bus to Jaipur. It would have been nice to stay and chill a bit longer in Pushkar but I have a feeling the scene would have started to get to me after a bit anyway.
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