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saturday 11th october - day 50
pushkar
after a lie in and a lovely cool sleep we check out at 11 and explore pushkar. we stroll down the main bazaar street again and go straight for breakfast. A humous, garlic cheese falafel - complete with salad, crispy aubergines and a few chips - amazing. We head down one of the alleyways that brings us out onto one of the many gnats which step down into the lake. Pushkar has 52 ghats and most hindis make at least one pilgrimage here to bathe at the holy ghats, wash away their sins and thereby earning themselves a place in heaven
A few cows are about on the steps along with a billion birds and theres people praying and bathing in the lake. we are approached by a guy who welcomes us and shoves a flower in our hand - before I can blink, me and yas are sat down seperately with a guy by the edge of the lake, throwing petals into the lake, repeating hindi over a coconut and having a red tikka smugged down our faces. Obviously theres money involved here, and unsurprisingly halfway into my 20th odd prayer - we are not just asked for a donation, but specifically asked how much we will be giving..starting from 2,000 each minimum. Woah. I tell him straight, we havent got that money on us (we actually havent - we blitzed the kitty on crap last night, and weve got a few hundred for food for the day). Yas appears as the metal tins are being shoved into my hands - we donate 400 and are actually ordered to put more in. Im really pissed off - I tell him no, that hes making is feel uncomfortble and a donation is a donation, not an order. He tells me its my destinty here and basically im going to be cursed with bad karma. Like I can get any worse luck anyway, we stomp off and refuse to pay anymore.
We continue our walk around the lake, have an awful milkshake along the way and burn our feet walking over a sacred bridge that you have to take your shoes off on. We pass countless small temples - including bhrama temple - which is unfortunately closed - and more gnats - where we refuse the guys armed with flower petals.
A banofee cake and a snooze in our hotel lobby overlooking the lake later, we climb upto one of the temples on a steep hill for sunset. Obviously we go the wrong way, cant find a path and end up f***ing rock climbing up through cacti and othee lethal spiky plants. We manage to weave round the hill and reach the path where the normal people are climbing up. We sit on a rock on the hill and watch the sunset accompanyed by a few pesky local kids - who later agree to have a photie.
Waking down after the sunset - we get another falafal, pick our bags up and walk round to the bus stop. We are told our bus was cancelled, they've moved us to another bus - but theres only seats available. 10 hours on a seat. Little did we know, thats the last of our worries.
Once the bus arrives, we are ordered again to pay 100rps for putting our bags in the boot. GUH. The bus has seats on the bottom and above are sleeper compartments - basically suspended coffins. Windows fully open as theres no AC and its more of an open top bus.
Everything looks like its made out of tin and flimsy plastic, the roads are awful - throwing us about and braking so sharp that I've lost count of how many times ive braced for a crash. The horn is more of a melody like an ice cream van song and its blaring out every few minutes. We spend more time in the air from being thrown about than we do on the scabby seats.
1 hour into the journey, not only is the bus full, they begin to let people on to stand down the middle. Absolutely chocker with people dragging bags of sugar rice, wooden pitch forks..screaming kids..its all topped off by a woman with a baby goat.
people are crammed everywere, all sitting bunched up in the sleepers, lying down in the isle, under the seat space.
sleep is impossible..this is a long 9 hours ahead, tbh, I'll just be grateful to make it there alive. I can't help thinking about being cursed with bad luck by that guy on the ghat.
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