A Hippie Town 'PUSHKAR'
The great thing about travelling by car through India is that there is so much freedom to your schedule. You can make pitstops as you like and if an impromptu recommendation passes your way, you can do it with no issue. The bad thing about travelling by car, especially when you have a short period of time and many places to see, is that you are in the car for quite a long period of time! Fortunately, I can sleep anywhere, and when I wasn't playing charades with Nipo or busting a move to some Hindi tunes (I know so many of the hot hits now!), I was asleep. And luckily for me, I was travelling solo so had the whole back seat to myself!
A placid lake in a small desert outpost? Yes please. It was just the relief one needed from the mania of New Delhi and the traffic-choked streets of Jaipur. But what had me seriously travel-stoked on Pushkar was that it supposedly enjoyed some seriously good vibes.
This vibrant town is best known to tourists for its annual camel fair, the biggest animal-trading fair in India. I left 3 days before the fair on purpose because all the locals said it’s just a dusty stinky mess.
I have met people who travel to Pushkar each year for this festival, so maybe I really missed out! The electricity was out most days until 5 PM, due to preparations for the fair- but I have an inkling that regardless of the fair there would be frequent outings just like the rest of rural India.For Hindu people, Pushkar would be most well known for the only Brahma temple in the world. He’s the creator of earth… so it’s worth checking it out! Rajasthan is spiritual and royal. If India’s chaos is stressing you out, you’ll feel so at peace here. See a temple, explore the lake, and you’ve already completed the tourist checklist; you can chill out and just enjoy!
ushkar, being a holy city, is entirely vegetarian. No eggs, meat or alcohol are allowed in Pushkar and drugs are frowned upon. However, that doesn’t stop the pleasure seekers and tourists from enjoying whatever their poison may be.
As a vegetarian, this meant that every restaurant we went to had many delicious options and we found ourselves visiting an assortment of eateries and rooftop restaurants.
The destination is popular with tourists and you could see quite a number of young travellers looking as though they had consumed far too many bhang lassis (like a marijuana milkshake). Beautiful, thin women with dirty dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes sat in corner cafes with their bearded and dusty partners. I found it difficult to imagine coming to India simply to smoke as much dope as possible and float around in a stoned haze.
From speaking to a number of locals, it seems that Israelis in particular have a very bad reputation and are not well liked. They tend to travel in large groups, living cheaply and spacing out on drugs. It is one of the popular countries for Israelis who have just finished their national service in Israel and India is their country of choice for getting lost. I found it quite amusing that many of them had fake dreadlock extensions added to their hair. In any case, I am not quite sure what it is that they do that so irritates the Indians, as there are many other travellers who are also intent on losing themselves through hallucinatory experiences, but they haven’t done much to inspire respect.
In any case, back to the eating.
We had a few hits and one terrible miss. The Satyan served a vegetarian Thali ( kind of like a mezze platter with a few different dishes) that tasted burnt, old and reheated. My mother’s paneer (cottage cheese) dish was inedible and tasted awful. While this was the only bad experience, guide books do say that this is common in Pushkar with the myriad rooftop restaurants in the town.
On our last day however, we discovered Dreamland Roof Top restaurant run by Ashok Mittal. The woman in charge made the most delectable dishes, and after speaking to her for a while, she told us that she would never hire a chef because, “ I know if I make good food, people will come back.” Yum – vegetarian’s paradise made even better by the beautiful views.
And, while alcohol is officially outlawed, if you really feel like a drink, most restaurants can get you a beer.
As we were in Pushkar during off season, accommodation was cheap and the main bazaar area, which has silver jewellery, clothes, fabric and curio shops as well as food stalls, was not overcrowded. There were amazing clothes and stunning silver jewellery. If I had a larger suitcase, I would have gone shopping crazy. We also had some comfortable cotton slacks made up by one of the local tailors for next to nothing.