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Pushkar is one of the more tourist hit destinations in Rajasthan with some days during high season and festivals having 10,000 foreigners packing the streets. Luckily mid- low season and the hottest month of the year, it was pretty quiet for us, prices were lower and we had the pick of the town.
It's known also to be one of the most holy towns in Rajasthan, which means no meat and no beer! The town is built around a square lake surrounded by steps. The locals change and bath in the holy lake, although it didn't look to appealing so we just had a quick look!
We spent some time having a wonder around the long market street, found some really nice local juices and street food and also Israeli falafel wraps. A nice change from Indian food and curries! After having about 23 curries in just over 2 weeks we've decided that when we can, we'll grab something different! One night we even managed to find a really good Italian stone baked pizza restaurant, a great tip from one of the locals!
Gemma was more than happy to have a bit of time shopping, and bought some nice Indian silver along the way. Also as we're still out of the high season it helps to save the hassle of the locals ramping prices sky high!
One of the highlights of our trip was an overnight camel trek into the desert and camp over night. The desert isn't like many rural towns, it's more like medium to large patches of desert with local farms woven in between. After about 1.5 hours on the camels we arrived at the camp site. Looking a bit dubious at first it ended up being a great night.
We had 2 guides and a cook with us. Our cook rustled up a nice Indian dinner and breakfast, and an unexpected treat was that our guides pulled out 2 nice mattresses for us and some crisp white sheets! Our beds were set up so we could see the amazing sky at night.
After dinner we played some cards and just watched the stars. An amazing treat after a few hours were some shooting stars we saw. The first couple were just normal, tiny white fast moving dots. The next two were crazy! They came in as huge fire balls and once they entered the atmosphere they left a great line of fire behind. One bright red and one bright green. Never seeing any comets like this before we didn't know what to expect at first, looking so big they might crash into earth!
Through the night the locals have a guard dog with them, probably the best trained dog I've ever seen! Kept a look out, went for a mission around every time a noise was heard and kept the local strays away from us. Also trained to lay right beside us rather than the locals who slept about 30m on the other part of the camp. Through the night we could hear a constant low thud of music, turns out it was a local wedding in the distance which means a full night of partying, finishing at about 4:30am!
On the last night in Pushkar we just chilled in the local town, got a great restaurant recommendation from a local for stone baked pizzas and got ready for the move to the capital of Rajasthan, Jaipur.
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