Mandawa - Pushkar

Brahma Temple in Pushkar

After our sightseeing in Mandawa we leave for Pushkar, one of the five sacred dhams (pilgrimage sites for devout Hindus). It is often called "Tirth Raj" - the king of pilgrimage sites - and has in recent years become a popular destination for foreign tourists.

Pushkar is one of the oldest cities of India and lies on the shore of Pushkar lake. Legend associates Lord Brahma with its creation. It is mentioned that Brahma performed penance here for 60,000 years to have a glimpse of Vishnu.
(Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva)

Pushkar has many temples. Most of the temples are not very old, since many were destroyed during Muslim conquests in the area, the destroyed temples were re-built. The most famous among all is the Brahma temple, built during the 14th century AD. Pushkar lake has 52 ghats, a series of steps leading down to the water, where pilgrims descend to the lake to bathe in the sacred waters. Pushkar is also famous for its annual Camel Fair.

Pushkar also means blue lotus flower in Sanskrit. Hindus believe that the gods released a swan with a lotus in its beak and let it fall on earth where Brahma would perform a grand yagna. The place where the lotus fell was called Pushkar.

Pushkar Lake

For me Pushkar was probably the town with the most appealing atmosphere.
Imagine lots of pilgrims, colourfully dressed women and narrow streets packed with shops, tea stands, market stands selling all kinds of wares and foods, cows, monkeys and dogs.
Actually, this town smells like hippies and backpackers to me ;D

Before we went to visit the Brahma temple Hilde warned me about the local "maffia" tricking tourists out of their money. I consider myself a rather experienced traveler but even I got tricked by their scheme and lost 30 euros.
They are actually very wicked, they "meet" you when you visit the Brahma temple where you get offerings (flowers), these offerings get a blessing at the temple and from the temple you need to walk to the lake for prayer. After the prayer it's customary that you throw your blessed flowers in the lake to get good fortune.
It's at the lake that the trap closes. Once you get to the lake you're approached by a priest (a fake one but you don't know the difference), he guides you to the lake and performs the rituals with you. Part of the ritual is repeating a mantra that he's saying, actually you need to repeat everything he says and before you realised it you promised to give a major "donation".
Once you start objecting they take you on your promise and start playing on your feelings because in the ritual we asked good fortune for our loved ones and ofc we don't want to be greedy when it comes to the good luck of those we love, now do we ?
Neither do we want to be disrespectful to their customs and religion, all these things together make you feel very insecure and before you know it you end up paying, very tricky basterds indeed ;D
One of those tricksters even had the nerve to ask me for a tip for walking me from the temple to the lake but at that time I was pretty angry and my looks could kill. Luckily for him he got my silent message and he left.... in one piece.

Apart from the taunts Pushkar is very enjoyable and I loved strolling in the small streets, watching all those different types of people passing by (I especially liked those beautiful Indian women with their colourful sari's) and trying to get a good deal in the local shops => got me some nice linen baggy trousers and linen shirts for practically nothing ;D

Delhi - Mandawa

Finally we're on our way to India.

The night before lift-off I decided not to go to bed but stay awake through the night instead, this resulted in me sleeping during the whole flight to Delhi, needless to say it was one of the best flights I ever had ;-)
It was night already when we arrived in Delhi so we didn't get much to see but we already met our driver, a little scrawny Indian guy who ends each answer with "next question"

After a good nights sleep and a hell of a breakfast in our hotel we're ready to leave for our first real destination in India => Mandawa
This city is known for it's beautiful haveli's, beautifully decorated houses of rich merchants.
For those who prefer reading in dutch => Hilde also writes our story on her Blog http://hildeontour.blogspot.com/

The first thing we notice while we're en route is the smog that hangs over Delhi, actually that's no wonder seeing that there are living over 12 million people in this town.
The second thing is the contrasts between rich and poor.
The third is the traffic, like in most Asian countries it's pure chaos with a lot of hooting ;D (but still nothing beats the traffic in Jakarta)
Our driver Raju says that in order to survive the traffic in India you need good brakes, a loud horn and lots of luck. Later on in our journey we're gonna learn how true this is.
The fourth is the huge amount of trash that's lying almost everywhere alongside the road, sometimes I get the feeling that we're driving through a dumping ground.
Obviously these people have no clue about trash collection or recycling and it's sad to see such a beautiful country being littered like this.
And finally the fifth is the cow and camel shit, people gather it and make flat disks out of it. They stick these disks to a wall to dry (looks weird to see a long wall completely "plastered" with shit pancakes). When these "pancakes" are dry they're stacked in big piles for later use.
(I know for a fact that my ex-girlfriend 'd have ran off kicking and screaming already so it's a good thing I never took her here)

Some pictures from along the road

Anyway, once we managed to leave Delhi our progress to Mandawa goes a lot smoother.
Along the road we see lots of trucks, tuktuks, motorcycles, busses, camels and ofc cows.
We even see a shabby roadside camp which seems to be a kind of night time whorehouse for truckers. Hygiene, privacy and comfort seem totally absent here and never did I see worse "working conditions" than this, I pity the poor women who have to work here.

Whoring camp for truckers

Due to bad road conditions and many detours we arrive too late in Mandawa to go sightseeing so we install ourselves in our hotel room and decide to have a beer on the patio, have diner and a refreshing dip in the pool.

The next day we finally got to see the beauty of Mandawa and how beautiful it was !!
Those haveli's, built around a central courtyard, are nicely decorated with paintings from top to bottom, a lust for the eye.
While we wander across the city we try to imagine the splendor of how it looked when the city was still in it's best state, that must have been stunning to see.
Maybe one day I get to realise my dream to open a nice guesthouse and opening one in such a beautiful haveli just seems like heaven to me but until I find a rich sponsor I think I'll have to keep dreaming. Any candidates ?

A beautifully restored haveli

The old water well

Poor people's huts

People on their way to a religious celebration, some of them already walked 100'ds of kilometers

Strange

Leaving on a trip normally involves a lot of advanced planning when you're backpacking, at least for me.
I always start preparing my trip a couple of months in advance, you can call it virtual travelling; deciding what country to visit, hunting down the cheapest air plane tickets, discovering the country online, looking up other travellers experiences, picking the places I really want to see, constantly replanning the route I want to follow, checking out how to get from A to B, making a list of available "in-budget" guesthouses, looking up how expensive it all will be and trying to fit everything into the available budget, checking where I can go in case of troubles, etc etc...
In short, for me travelling starts a couple of months before the actual departure date, all the planning is a huge part of the adventure which causes a constantly increasing "happy buzz" the closer I get to that D-Day (departure day).

Not so this time :-(
Why ? Because there's nothing to plan, nothing to arrange, nothing to worry or care about (except from getting the running shitters).
And that always increasing happy buzz before departure ? Well it's simply not there which is kinda sad actually.
It's only 36 hours before I leave and I still didn't bother to pack my bag or decide what clothes to take.
The fact that I'm leaving seems so unreal, as if my brain refuses to register that the clock is ticking rapidly.
Or am I already an Alzheimer case ?

Anyway, I'm very happy to leave and to discover things I never saw or experienced before but traveling this way still feels strange.

just my 2 cents

7 more days

In exactly one week from now I'll leave again to discover beautiful India.
This time no backpacking though, instead me and my friend Hilde have a private driver to drive us around Rajasthan during our 12 day trip.

For those who are interested here's our program :

Day 1: Brussels - Delhi
Day 2: Delhi - Mandawa
Day 3: Mandawa - Pushkar
Day 4: Pushkar - Khejarala
Day 5: Khejarala - Jodhpur - Ranakpur
Day 6: Ranakpur - Udaipur - Ranakpur
Day 7: Ranakpur - Jojawar
Day 8: Jojawar - Jaipur
Day 9: Jaipur
Day 10: Jaipur - Fatehpur Sikri - Agra
Day 11: Agra - Delhi
Day 12: Delhi - Brussel

more to come...... soon