This weekend, Ben and I decided to take a little adventure to Pushkar, a town in central-ish Rajasthan. Ben had spent two days there in July on a break from work, so he knew a family we could stay with for free, and we got our group travel agent to find us some cheap-ish AC train tickets. Ben and I set our alarms (each of us) for 4:40 AM for our 6:05 train out of Delhi Saturday morning. The trip went something like this:
SATURDAY
-Emily wakes me up at 6:06, I yell at Ben that our train left 1 minute ago - what do we do?! At this point we're both so tired that we're about ready to call the whole thing off but luckily we were both packed so we decided that if we sprinted to a rickshaw and got a fast ride we could make the train, because trains here are always late.
-Arrived at the station at 6:17 (very impressive) after ben smashed his knee on the gate outside of our residency and I had to run ahead to flag down a driver. As we're looking for the proper platform to board, a guy comes out of nowhere and says "Where are you going?!" "Ajmer" "Ajmer?! Come with me!!" and takes off running, goes around the metal detectors, etc. and finally slows down when we arrive on our empty platform. He told us that we missed our train (the only train in all of India to have ever been on time) and points us in the direction of a tourist agency that can get us another ticket.
-Go talk to the agency, the other train is completely booked. He offers us "delux bus" (air conditioned, nice busses that we've been riding since we've been here) tickets to Ajmer for Rs. 550 (just as much as our train tickets) and after we realize that he's not budging on prices we agree and throw some money his way. Ben breaks the chair he's sitting in and it's the first time I've laughed all morning.
-Take a rickshaw to the bus station about 20 minutes away. Apparently using the other side of the road is much more efficient because people really move for you when you're heading straight at them.
-Find our "delux bus" which is not air conditions and certainly far from delux. Two female backpackers in their 20s board the bus followed by a really scronny cycle rickshaw driver who is yelling at them. We ask them what the deal is and they say that he was already paid and wants more. So we get up and start arguing with the guy until he grabs one of the girls legs and starts shaking her at which point ben grabs him and throws him off the bus, comes back and asks me for some hand sanitizer. Second laugh of the morning - at least we're having fun now
-Start driving, and I start thinking about what a 7 hour bus ride is going to feel like. Fall asleep, wake up 2 hours later. Start REALLY thinking about what a 7 hour bus ride is going to be like.
-Try to figure out where the heck we are, but when all the road signs are in another language this is harder than it seems. We were using time traveled/time expected to travel to get a rough estimate as to where we are. We decide we're about half way as it's been about 4 hours.
-Bus stops for a brief food break at which point a Delhi University students starts talking to us and tells us that we're about 2 hours from Jaipur, which puts us about 5 or 6 hours outside of Ajmer. Wonderful. Board bus, fall back asleep.
-Wake up to a stopped bus and a young kid pointing toward the door. "Ajmer, Pushkar?!" he says. "Yea." "Off!" So we assume that we have to take a connecting bus from whereverthehellweare to Ajmer. Luckily somone outside asks us where we're going and when we say for the 10000th time "Ajmer" he says something really fast in Hindi and motions for us to get in his rickshaw. Cross our fingers.
-Arrive at another bus station where he gets us on the right (hopefully) bus toward Ajmer. Ben and I find a double sleeping compartment which could have doubled as one of those Dateline "Inside America's Hotels" things where they use a blacklight to show you all the disgusting stuff you don't know you're sleeping on. Except you didn't need a black light, you can see poop with your own eyes. Too tired to care, we both pass out.
-Wake up at sunset, about 7, 7:30. At this point it's been 12 hours of bus travel (compared to the "7 hour delux ride" promised by the guy in Delhi), and we know we MUST be close
-At 8:15 we arrive in what we assume is Ajmer, because at this point anywhere is fine as long as it's not on a bus. We get off and have to get ANOTHER rickshaw ride to ANOTHER bus station to go to Pushkar. Pushkar better be freaking awesome.
-Board an even more scary looking bus to what we hope is Pushkar. Ben finally gets in contact with the guy we're staying with (way to plan ahead!) and we think he understands that we're going to be there in an hour.
-Arrive in Pushkar at 9:20ish - total travel time = 14 hours roughly. But at least we know where we are now!
-Rent a really janky motorbike/scooter from a place right by the bus station, which we quickly nickname the Madher Chod (motherfucker) because of its...jankiness. Finallly get it started and Ben takes us to get our first meal of the day (which is a bit of a lie because I had a banana at 7 AM and a bag of chips at noon).
-Get some pizza which was really tasty and admired Pushkar from above - a really beautiful city, but not very well illuminated, so hard to get a feel for.
-Go to Shiam's house (the family we're staying with) which is completely dark. We start yelling out to him from the street with no response until a neighbor sticks her head over the wall and says "What country?" "America...." "OOOOH! adas;dfsjdfsljsdf" and she starts yelling at Shiams house (apparently we have the right idea). Finally, she comes over and pulls the piece of sheet metal separating the street from their house out of the way and leads us to the door. We see a light go on inside, and Endra (Shaim's wife) answers the door with a huge, sleepy smile on her face. She wakes Shiam up who comes up and hugs ben, shakes my hand, and lets us in. The inside was about the side of my dorm kitchen freshman year, just big enough for a cot for Shiam and Endra, and a blanket on the ground for his 4 kids. He proceeds to wake all 4 of them up, only two of whom respond, and Endra makes us some chai after about 5 minutes of telling her we're too tired and full to drink any. We go up to the roof, they give us all but 2 blankets from inside the house and steal the two pillows from the two sleeping children remaining for us as well. Shiam, Anil (his oldest son, 15) and Gigi (youngest daughter, 5, below) sleep up there with us. There is a festival going on so I fall asleep to the sweet sweet sounds of tablas and can't wait for my lessons next month.
SUNDAY
-Anil wakes us up at around 5 so we can see the sunrise from the top of the hill at the nearby Savitri temple. We get chai at his family's chai stand at the base of the hill (now I know why the tea last night was so phenomenal).
-We take the 20 minute walk uphill and arrive at the temple which was completely inhabited by monkeys. I give my camera to Anil and he takes about 200 pictures of monkeys
-Make a few offerings in the temple and hang out with some Israelis outside. Finally a great view of Pushkar, and what a view!-Go back to the base for MORE CHAI! and then we depart for a few hours of exploring.
-Walk the main bazaar which was interesting but also just a bunch of crap i didin't have any intention of buying. We did have a nice talk with a gem shop owner, talking about how Pushkar has changed and listening to him diss on Israelis - they just come here to smoke!
-Decide to go for a ride on the bike out of the town and see the desert - being in Pushkar makes you forget that you're completely surrounded by desert, and not much else. So we attempt to find this temple in a cave that we read about - the guide book said it had no name, no signs toward it, but that it was 8 km north of town, so we drive in what we think is the right direction.
-We see a gorge in the hills with a few bikes and cars parked and some people gathered so after going a little past that we turn around and check it out. Two guys at the bottom are really confused as to why we are there but eventually tell us CHALLO! so we make the tiny hike up to what we guess it a temple. And it was - but it was no ordinary temple, it was a PARTY TEMPLE! we walked into a group of guys playing cards and passing around a few bottles of gin (not the first of the day based on their inability to use both feet). People are stumbling, tripping, falling everywhere, scooping their food back onto their plates, when out of nowhere a fight breaks out. Two guys start (for lack of a better word) bitch slapping each other and falling all over the place. At this point i'm thinking we need to get out of there, but when I saw the giggling crowd forming around them I realized that it was as you say here "No problem." The fight gets broken up after about two minutes of pathetic slaps and punches, when I hear ben say "and here comes the stick..." Turn around and one of the guys has come back with a really spiky sharp whacking stick to settle this feud. He might have got one hit in before someone got it out of his drunken hands, and the two went on with their business. Partys over, we're out.
-Keep driving, passing random huts on the side of the road but not much else than rolling hills of sand and scattered trees. Totally different than the India i've seen thus far and pretty spectacular. Guys in perfectly white robes and bright orange and red turbans everywhere.
-Get our "Pushkar Passports" which is essentially a string they tie around your wrist which indicates that you did some BS prayer with a BS priest and gave some temple way too much money. But it's supposed to keep people from messing with you from there on out, so it seemed worth the 2 bucks that I eventually coughed up for this "holy man." Oh mom - he said a blessing for you so watch out for good luck!
-Go buy some chipati flour for Shiam and his family as a gift which gets us a lot of laughs from shopkeeps along the main strip. They say we're the only tourists they've seen walking around with nothing but flour from a bread market...most people buy shirts, and stuff...it was a good conversation starter though!
-Get lunch, then head back to Shiam's to hang out before we have to leave
-Get more chai - imagine that! Hang out with his kids for a while who eventually convince me to give them my sunglasses, and they looked way too cute to say no.
-Try to drive to see the sunset from the top of a hill but we ended up trying to basically climb on top of a small temple and we got kicked out by a very chilled out guy who was feeding the ants. Had a crazy night driving experience - the desert doesn't have street lights and our scooter light only worked based on how fast we were going, so that made things. interesting!
-Return our scooter, get on a really crowded bus back to Ajmer. Arrive in Ajmer at 8:30, 4 hours before our train. We find some random bar to hang out in that claims to be air conditioned but only has fans and play the name game for about 3 hours while watching random bollywood films on mute across the room. I try to keep my eyes open and not lean on the table for fear of getting kicked out of the bar and having absolutely nowhere to go (train stations aren't the best places to pass time/not get hassled by every beggar in town). Somehow manage to stay awake until 12:30, walk to the train station and find out that our train is 8 minutes EARLY! This is now the second train in all of India to be on time!
-Find our sleeper car, find our bunk.......................
MONDAY
-Wake up at 7:15, with an estimated 7:30 arrival time - get into Delhi at 7:45. Home sweet home.
-Take my first shower in 3 or 4 days. They might have to replace the tiles from all the dirt that came off my feet.
-Think about taking a nap but realize that I have Hindi class in an hour.
So worth it.
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