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December 20-23, 1998

We got up early and caught a "tourist" bus to Pushkar, and just as they had on previous "tourist" bus rides, they stopped all along the way to pick up hordes of locals. We procured a room in Pushkar overlooking the allegedly peaceful lake. We spent the afternoon walking to a temple perched high above the small city on a large, volcano-shaped, hill. Pushkar is a Mecca for Hindus, because it contains India's only Brahma temple. There are three main deities in Hinduism: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Throughout India and Nepal, we have seen many temples devoted to Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the sustainer but, since Brahma is the one creator, only one temple exists for him. Pushkar is also a Mecca for tourists, because of its relaxed nature, clean streets and warm climate. Even though possession of beer, meat or eggs is punishable by jail, anything else you could imagine is readily available and for sale around every corner.

Not only were we annoyed by the constant harassment of the local touts, but the serenity of our peaceful lake view abode was shattered every morning at 4 am by bells followed by the Muslim call for prayer. The twisted melodies continued ceaselessly until about 7:30 am when the sun finally rose. The silence reigned for a mere half hour and just when we began to drift back into peaceful slumber, the drum lessons began on the ghat below our window! Pushkar was the first place we experienced bad food in India. The hotels in Pushkar are keen on catering to the tourists and therefore served bad, all-you-can-eat buffets of pseudo-western food. The local restaurants are no better. They try to cater to the perceived bland palette of tourists by removing all spices and flavor. Between the drum lessons, Muslim calls to prayer, street touts and bad food, two days was one and a half days too many. We got up, headed to the bus station, and grabbed the first ticket out.

One evening, before we left, while watching the sunset (the best part of Pushkar) from the rooftop of our hotel, an Englishmen named Scott, who was enjoying Pushkar immensely, told us of a 12-day camel trek from Pushkar to Jaisalmer, which was our next destination. At first we laughed at the idea of traveling through the desert on the back of a camel for 12 days, but as we sat silently watching the sun we contemplated this thought. The next sentence that was spoken went something like this:

"Maybe we should take a camel trek through the desert?"

"Yeah, but 12 days is a lot."

"Okay, we'll go half of the way by bus, to Jodhpur, and take camels from there to Jaisalmer."

"Sweet! That's the plan. Let's catch the first bus to Jodpur!"

When Marc, who stayed an extra day in Jaipur arrived, he convinced us it would be better to go to Bikaner from Pushkar and then ride camels to Jaisalmer from there. We could then go to Jodpur by train. In this way we would avoid any backtracking. And so, just like almost every other plan we've had on this trip, we made a 90 degree turn and headed off in a new direction!