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Tuesday, January 21st – Pushkar
The morning is magical in the golden glow of the desert. The temperature is perfect outside and the whole environment - the town, the lake, the Thar Desert, our hotel - is peaceful and idyllic. I am showered and dressed first so I head to breakfast downstairs while Frank is showering. I promised David, the young Vancouverite, that I would meet him for breakfast in the hotel restaurant at 8 am. I am already 15 minutes late. When I get down there, he is in line-up to get his banana porridge.
"Oh good, I'm not too late," I say to him, but he looks upset. "Well, I was here right at eight," he says, "and I have lined up once before. I sat down at the picnic table to start without you and suddenly this big male monkey stuck his head up from under the far side of the table and glared at me fiercely. Then he reached out and snatched the bananas off the top of my porridge with his dirty fingers that he has probably just used to pick his ass with."
I can't help laughing, and suggest it will be a good story to tell back home. I offer to sit across from him and help ward the primates off. Because this is a sacred pilgrimage town, a "tirtha" in Hindu, no animals are allowed to be injured. The smarter ones like the local apes have figured this out long ago and take full advantage of it. I can't even get eggs for breakfast here because animal products of any kind are not allowed to be served.
Frank and I decide to go for another walk to check out the souvenir shops along the main drag. As we are leaving the hotel we see one of the hotel managers chasing a group of monkeys who are scampering along the edge of the roof. They have probably been up to some mischief. He is threatening to swat them with his broom. They keep out of reach, screeching back at him and occasionally tossing something at him in retaliation.
We wander through several shops, looking at clothing, postcards and small carvings. I buy myself a small teak elephant and some Rajasthani pants with patterned cuffs decorated with pieces of mirror. I also pick up hopefully the last supply of postcards I will need. Every week I have been sending a postcard to a different member of my department at work at the City of Toronto and of course to most of my friends again and again, more than two hundred during my trip, although I have only received maybe two dozen back. I sit in a sidewalk café and fill out a few more over the next hour.
When in comes time for lunch I am on my own. I stop at one of the restaurants along the strip. It is comfortably dark and cool. As I am sitting waiting for my meal to arrive a monkey pushes the back door open gently and sits there, ever so politely, waiting for the restaurateur to notice her. He picks up a tomato and tosses it past her. When she goes to retrieve it he closes the door again. "I don't mind giving them something when they are polite about it," he comments to me.
After lunch, I walk around Pushkar Lake. On the far side, I decide to climb Ratnagiri Hill that houses the Savitri Temple on its top, which offers the wife of Brahma. There are only a small handful of temples to Brahma in the world, the main one being in Pushkar, which is why it is known as Dham Raj, the king of Hindu pilgrimage sites. The hill is more than 200 m high as is about four kilometres from my hotel. I don't climb all the way to the temple but make it most of the way there, far enough to get a good photo. The town looks so new from this height. The guide book says it is one of the oldest settlements in India, but the Muslims destroyed it completely during their conquests so the present buildings are not very old compared to many other places.
I stroll back down the hill and make my way back to the hotel to shower before dinner. Frank is on the patio, relaxing in the sun. He says he has enjoyed the day immensely but there isn't much to do here. One day is enough. Tomorrow we will continue are ride to the south to see the Jain temple at Ranakpur and the city of Udaipur. There is so much to squeeze in before I fly back to Canada in 23 days.
PHOTO 1: Langur monkeys in Pushkar
PHOTO 2: Pushkar, from across the lake
PHOTO 3: from Ratnagiri Hill, the best view
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