Minimal tour in Rajasthan: Bundi and Pushkar

After a few days recovery in Jaipur we left the bikes in Monti’s house and ventured the Rajasthani roads by bus. The fist stop was Bundi, a little town with winding roads and smily people. There was a distinct family of wild boars that slept in the sewage to keep afresh from the blazing heat. They grow to a respectable size eating less respectable waste and this combination made us wonder where on earth go their remains when they pass away.
Bundi has a medieval touch and a picturesque fort upon the hill which we did not visit but admire from afar. We took it very very easy as the temperatures are scaling higher everyday.

Puppies feeding in the shade of a parked car

India is an enormous country with such a large population that the figures are  hard to imagine. The best way to experience these stats is to jump on the public transport. We took the bus from Bundi to Pushkar, 4 hours to do 150km at 38°C. Any space available is a potential area of occupation. If your lap is empty you might end up travelling with a box under your nose or an unknown child on your legs. The last trips on the train had already challenged us but we were still struggling to compromise. We used to live in England, right? If you have never been there, let me tell you: they will apologise for using the stairs at the same time as you! In India they will come and sit on your berth if in your sleep you happen to roll to the side leaving 20cm vacant and if this continues long enough, you might end up sharing your seat with 3 other people (and all this at 40°C). As much as we want to let go and level our sense of personal space to the local ways, we have a long way to go… it is clearly a good time to do a Vipassana retreat.

We arrived to Pushkar and  within the first 100m a man pointed us towards a hotel with a swimming pool… a what?! we did not even had to bargain the price. Ah! What a lush! Pushkar is a small town in the  mountains famous for its sacred lake and for having the only Brahma temple on Earth. It is therefore a pilgrimage place for Hindus but off course nothing to do with the scale of Varanassi. It is interesting how it also became a hot spot for western tourist which go there to relax and shop textiles in its vast Bazaar. Of course this is the extremely low season and although it was the first time we saw that many other tourists (mainly young Israelis), whether it was the heat or the natural pace of the place, we enjoyed a really nice and quiet time.

During the first hours of the morning around the lake you can see the locals bathing and performing puja, is a nice moment to walk around but you need to get the rules right! If you want to avoid being shout at as you enjoy the sun rise, you should not sit near the lake with the shoes in your hand, of course you are not supposed to wear them but you should not even carry them. Also you are not supposed to take pictures of people bathing (fair enough) but under this pretext you may get shout at (again) even if there is no one around you and you are taking the portrait of a snail. The ways, these interactions… Vipassana is coming soon.

This is the low season for tourism but is the peak of the season for marriages. We slept 3 nights in Pushkar and each one to the sound of a marching band or an orchestra near by. A single wedding party will go on for days. One night we found this procession with white horses and a full on parade with lanterns and music, 3 sisters were getting married to 3 brothers. It was one one brides herself who told me this as we both watched the parade standing on a shop stand. How strange it was to me that she was watching the celebration as an outsider like myself. I think that their celebrations are gender segregated and ladies would also gather among themselves and have ball in their own right may be without bombos  y trompetas!