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Pushkar is one of the holiest sites in all of India. There are three lakes said to be the result of lotus petals falling from the heavens, dropped by a Hindu god. Therefore, the city does not all alcohol, meat, or eggs in all of the city. As we checked into the hotel, we were told in a whisper that they serve beer. Carrie couldn't hear him and kept saying, "what?" when she finally figured out what he was saying she said, "oh BEER" in a super loud voice. smooth.
We had a delicious egg breakfast too. Do you see a theme here? Oh, and marijuana is legal and look out for those pot yogurt drinks that they sell everywhere.
The lake is so holy, you can't wear your shoes near it. We didn't go near it. It was a shit hole. I mean...if this is holy...how do they treat unholy? Well, we've shown you pictures of that. :) The scam of the town is that men will approach you with broken down marigolds and say, "Welcome to Pushkar, take this flower and drop it in the holy lake for good luck" Then, some suckers (not us) take the flower and head to the lake. At the lake, you meet a different man, who talks to you about your family. He then divulges, after you have thrown the flower in the lake, that if you do not give him a "donation" of 100 rupies for every family member you mentioned they will die. Lovely. The best part is, after you throw the flowers in...they go and collect them for re-use which is why they look so broke down in the first place. Brilliant! So the first day, we politely said, "no thank you" to the flowers.
We watched the sun set over the lake and it was really beautiful. We were walking back to the hotel later that night. It was our first time venturing out in rural india after dark. We had our walking sticks held like clubs. We were walking down the street when all of a sudden miss carrie hurled me into the street because a huge camel came flying out an alley way and scared the shit out of her and nearly took our heads off. So, she saved my life. ;)
The next day, we headed into town after our "law breaking" egg breakfast, for some shopping/meandering about town. We were approached by so many men with flowers that our polite "no thank you's" turned into "no's" then "NO's". Finally, they started being flat out rude by mimicing us and demanding we "take it" that we devised a little plan. We needed an outlet to help us vent our frustrations, end the flower demands. What we came up with worked like a charm, it confused them and stopped them in their tracks. The magic words......."SUCK IT!" They had no idea what we were saying so they were confused and the force with which we said it made them run away. It was great. We got a good laugh off of it everytime which made our day far more enjoyable! See how resourceful we are...they didn't even know we were being mean. We are after all, international spokespeople for the good US of A.
After a refreshing samosa and lemon mint shake up from the street vendors (ps. they reuse straws in India...just a little water and they are good as new) we climbed up to the top of the holy mountain. It took about an hour to summit. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed a refreshing $4 coca cola at the top of the "holy mountain". We headed back down just before sunset because the path was a bit too treacherous for a torch desent. (torch = flashlight for you non British English speakers). We wrestled a few monkeys on the way down. Actually we just swung our hiking sticks at them and they stopped showing us their fangs.
Back to the hotel for a disgusting dinner topped off by homemade "chocolate balls" which are crumbled up buscuits mixed with nutella and rolled by hand into a ball. MMMMmmmm....delicious.
Then, most importantly, we watched the American Music Awards...geez did they let Kevin Federline have it!
Our last morning in Pushkar we purchased a set breakfast and one of our set breakfast options was cornflakes or porridge. We all know Americans don't eat porridge we eat General Mills Cornflakes with milk. Well, they ran out of cornflakes and replaced it with porridge without asking. I ate my porridge...but miss carrie kennedy hates porridge. She had hit a wall people...India wasn't ready for her to have to deal with porridge. She didn't eat her porridge and was hell bent on not paying for it. So, as the check arrived, she explained calmly that she didn't want to pay for the porridge she didn't want and didn't eat. See, in India you have to battle it out like they would for anything and everything, including that $1 worth of porridge. So, there was a progressively louder conversation between the waiter and Carrie with phrases eminating from Carrie like, "I HATE PORRIDGE, I didn't order porridge, I would NEVER order porridge, nor would I ever EAT Porridge, i just wanted cornflakes, I am not going to pay for Porridge, I HATE PORRIDGE" (truthfully, i don't think she's even tried porridge) in the end...Carrie Kennedy came out on top..not paying for the porridge only after the boss commisserated with her about hating porridge because he associated it with being poor and Charles Dickens. Brilliant scene.
previous travel blog entry
MBicer says:
Please Carrie, can we have some more?