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Pushkar is a small city on the eastern edge of the Thar desert. Built around a lake that, according to Hindus, was formed by a lotus petal dropped from the God of creation, Brahma's, hand. The city remains an important pilgrimage site for Hindus. There was a huge influx of hippies in the 1970's who went to Pushkar to visit and never left. There are around 500 temple's built near Pushkar, some dating back to 2000 years ago.
We arrived in Pushkar and found a cheap room close to the center of the tourist hub. We walked the main street where all the shops are and we're amazed at how many food stalls served falafels. On our first afternoon we explored the town a little, had falafels
for supper and, since we were exhausted from traveling, headed back to the hotel room.
The next morning, while searching for a good breakfast, we came upon a fruit stand that was crowded with people with delicious looking bowls filled with fruit, yogurt and muesli. We stopped and ordered two bowls of muesli and they were the best we had had in India. After that, we ate breakfast there everyday and when we wanted a fruit shake, we stopped at this stall.
We walked the main bazaar road again and looked at the hundreds of shops that line the sides of the road. We then proceeded to have a look at the lake around which Pushkar is built. We were told that there were many touts near the lake and that they harassed the tourists so we were expecting to be a little bothered by them. Upon approaching the lake, a man ran up to us and put flowers in our hands and said that they were prayer flowers and that we had to go right away to the lake to pray. Though we had intended to stop at the nearby post office, the man looked so distressed that we didnt want to go to the lake right away that we figured we should go and that we could go to the post office after. As with every other sacred area, we removed our shoes but put them in my purse because we were not going to go all the way around the lake and would return to the main street once we walked to the other side. The man who had given us the flowers looked alarmed and told us we HAD to leave our shoes on this side of the lake. At first we tried to explain that we would need them to walk on the street once we reached the other side, but he was not listening and started screaming at us. Just then, an Indian man walked up behind us, walking on the sacred part of the lake area with his shoes on. As we looked more and more, we saw many people with their shoes on walking around the lake. At this point, out of frustration of not being listened to and being yelled at, Marco simply dropped the flowers from his hand and walked away from the screaming man. I quickly followed and we began our walk around the lake. We did not put our shoes back on though we noticed that most people were wearing sandals. After that angry encounter, we were not bothered by any other person who wanted to give us praying flowers.
We spent a little while in Pushkar, often aimlessly wandering the streets and drinking fruit shakes. Though very relaxing, it got a little boring so we soon moved on to Udaipur.
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