Pushkar

Pushkar must become a destination for my tours! http://www.stressescapetours.com/ wouldn't it be great to hold a yoga retreat here????

Page 211 in the Lonely Planet's Guide to Rajasthan: PUSHKAR pop 14,789.

I was here in 1991 while traveling on my 'round the world airticket', the trip that made me hopelessly in love with travel. Pushkar was a very differnet so long ago. Most buildings were one story. Sadar bazaar road was a quiet road without any vehicles mind the occaisional camel or mule. The few shops that lined the streets were tailors, in fact, I remember having a pair of nifty pajamas made for my dad here. The quiet has long gone. Banana pancakes and Isreali signs dominate Sadar Bazaar now, internet signs and money changing stalls abound. India 'world cafe music' floats from stalls. Somehow all this, and the stream of tourists seamless blend in with the daily routines of Indian life. The weddings still take place, pilgrims from both city and desert come to puja at the holy lake.

"It's a Hindu pilgrim town, a cluster of pale onion domes, with 400 milky temples, where regular pujas (prayers) create the town's episodic soundtrack of chanting, drums, gongs and devotional songs booiming from the crackling loudspeakers. The town curls around a holy lake said to have appeared wth Brahma dropped a lotus flower. It also has one of the world's few Brahma temples." ~Lonely Planet Rajasthan pg. 211

Fifty two ghats edge the lake, allowing for worshippers to touch their hands or emmerse their entire body inthe dirtied water. I too touched the magical water only to see charcoal blasck water stream through my fingers.
Unfortunately motorized traffic has made it's way onto the narrow streets, at one time illegal. Now the bikes weave through the crowds blaring thier horns which have been adjusted tot he shrill whine. Together with the camels, cows, goats, mules and carts, we pedestrians wind through the alleys mesmerized by the scene