Day 3: 24 November – Pushkar

Photo of the day: View of Pushkar and its lake from the roof of our hotel

After a good sleep (whoever thought of putting Nytol and Kingfisher together should be knighted) we had a spicy omelette for breakfast. The hotel in Jaipur, incidentally, was excellent – small and friendly, with a lovely courtyard garden setting in a quiet area, so a name check for Dera Rawatsar.

In the car we drove back into town and stopped off for a few pictures and some practice at crossing the road – the worst thing that happened was that I almost walked on a cobra that one of the men sitting there was “charming”. As well as the older city, Jaipur also has some new buildings and a mall-like structure. Then we joined a six-lane highway and bombed along it, wondering if there were any tourists who do self-drive car hire and if so whether it was what they expected.

Pushkar was about three hours from Jaipur and we drove down narrow streets to get to our hotel. First impressions were of a rather touristy, alternative small town, with lots of western tourists walking around. However when we got up to our room we saw the lake that the town is built on, with all the steps leading down to it. These sets of steps are called “ghats” and are used by Hindu worshippers who wash in the lake: this is one of the most sacred lakes in India. It was a beautiful view, and later we sat there at sunset with the bells and music ringing out loudly from all the temples. (We are expecting more of the same later and at 5am tomorrow...)

After a delicious and cheap thali (no meat or alcohol allowed in this town) we went walking around for our first taste of walking in an Indian street scene. It was quite mild as an introduction: lots of shops catering for tourists but also some people selling vegetables and clothing.

We found the Brahma temple – one of the very few in India. Brahma was the god of creation and for some reason temples weren't built to him after the 6th century. Going round it was rather bemusing – not knowing what to do or where to put the marigolds and sugar that we had been given on the way in as we left our shoes. The marigolds were to be left at various points, and the sugar... well to be honest I didn't work that out.

With some of the marigolds remaining, we looked for a quiet ghat to go down and enjoy the view of the town and the lake. Finally we found one, when a man came and started to help us to pray, so he intoned various prayers which we repeated each word after him as we threw individual marigold flowers into the lake. This continued until the last prayer when his prayer contained the words “donation” and “five hundred rupees”. My Hindi isn't as good as it could be, but we could see that this wasn't a good sign, so we politely declined and eventually (and less politely but I've had worse) he went away, leaving us to enjoy the view.

Having been expecting lots of begging and touting, actually it isn't too bad so far – probably no worse than some of the stuff I had on my Inter-Rail holidays in Greece for example.