Greetings one and all from the totally bewitching and chilled Pushkar!

 

Well what's been going on since I last wrote???? I finally managed to haul my ass out of Delhi a week ago once I felt a bit better after the dreaded cold I had. Got my Nepali visa while I was there and on my last day there I visited a couple of well cool places.

 

The first was Raj Ghat. This is the sight where Gandhi was cremated in 1948. The spot is marked by a very simple black slab of marble covered in flower petals and an eternal flame burns there. There is certainly a real sense of awe about the place and it is so peaceful and tranquil. While I was there, there was a real crazy looking guy who was playing tunes on a seashell to the marble slab which made it much more entertaining....!

 

Across the road from here is the Gandhi memorial museum and this is full of an amazing collection of photographs and personal effects that belonged to Bapu himself. You can also listen to some of his speeches and he was a very funny and charismatic guy...makes me want to watch the film again now I'm fully educated in the story of his life. I spent about 3 hours in here as it as so fascinating...the photos are really thought provoking and the letters and documents he wrote are amazing. Near the end of the museum there is a small darkened section and this contains the blood soaked clothes he was wearing on his way to prayers at the time of his assassination along with his pocket watch stopped at the time of his death and two of the bullets that killed him. There are numerous urns that distributed his ashes to various holy sites after his cremation and one particularly large ornate one that carried his ashes to the Ganges. It is made all the more real and poignant by actual photos alongside.

 

I then went on to Indira Gandhi's house which is in the sweeping tree lined avenues of New Delhi. For a prime minister it is quite a simple house but you get to see rooms from which she greeted many presidents and members of royal families and they have remained the same since her assassination in 1984. Again there is the photo gallery and personal writings and effects about her life. Most touching of all there is a section that was written by Rajiv Gandhi her son before his own assassination. It is his own personal account of his life with his mother and is very touching to read. Again you get to see the blood soaked sari she was wearing at the time of her assassination by her Sikh body guards in the garden of her home and also what is left of the clothes and Nike trainers! Rajiv Gandhi was wearing at the time he was assassinated in a car bomb attack in 1991..blown to pieces! You are guided though the house finally to the garden where there is now a footpath of glass marking the area Indira was walking at the time of her death and a very simple glass plaque where she was killed. Well worth a

visit.

 

I left Delhi at 6.00 a.m. on the Friday morning on a "bus" to Jaipur. The bus kinda turned into an air con jeep that was much better as I got to sit up front taking maximum opportunity of the air con! We drove through Delhi very early and I got to see the sun coming up over the India Gate and it was glorious and I also got to see the Parliamentary palace which was cool.

 

Got to Amber, the old city around lunchtime and as part of the trip I got a car for free for the day!!! So the nice driver called Lala (no relation to the Telly tubbies!) drove me to my hotel and then took me back to Amber to see the Amber fort and Jaigarh. It was sooo hot though that it was a real struggle to climb the hill and I refused to pay 400 rupees to take an elephant ride. The handlers and tourist police were laughing at me because I told them it was too hot for the elephants to work and they should be resting. Not big on their elephant welfare I guess!

 

The views from up there are great but sadly at this point my camera decided not to play anymore so couldn't take any photos. The glass palace there is great too. I stayed at a guest house in Japiur called Evergreen. It was quite a large place built around an inner garden full of scents of jasmine and bougainvillea (sp?) It was full of backpackers and a great place to meet people. I met a mad English guy called Olly there who was completely hyperactive and his mate Jim who just liked chillum! I met some Italian chaps there and they were really nice and I spent an afternoon playing backgammon with them and losing all the time, and we went to a local swimming pool on Sunday to relax. In the evenings everyone congregated around the restaurant and chilled out and chatted and then went up to the roof for a smoke and chillums and a spot of star gazing and UFO spotting!!! There was another guy who played the guitar and it was a great way to unwind after spending time in the frenzy of Jaipur..It was here I met Elad (Israeli) and Amrita (Dutch) who I am now in Pushkar with.

 

We decided to hook up and travel on together. Jaipur is not a particularly nice place to be on your own and you definitely get the sense that you are constantly being stalked by the locals, touts, gem scammers and general unpleasant people. The rickshaw drivers will flatly refuse to take you to some places and you have to fight to get anywhere without going to see a shop - which is in fact some gem scam or other!!

 

The old city is a great place to spend a few hours and is peaceful and serene after the madness of the streets. In the old city there are the two largest silver urns in the world that were made for a previous maharajah. They are 5'3" tall, nearly 15 feet in circumference and hold 900 litres of water. The maharajah used them to transport water from the Ganges to England on a visit as he did not trust the English water!!!!

 

After a trundle around the old city the mayhem and hassle of the streets really were getting too much and at times I didn't feel too comfortable. I tried to get my camera fixed but the man in the shop wanted $50 plus time and for me to leave my camera with him...no fear!

 

One of the highlights of Jaipur was a group of us went to the Raj Mashir cinema which is one of the most famous in India to catch a Bollywood epic called Aankhen (meaning eyes) The cinema is like a palace with carpets you sink and bounce on and the samosas and food at the interval was some of the best I've had. We sat in the Diamond box in the cinema in seats that reclined and were like great armchairs. The ticket cost us 1 pound! Basically the film was about this guy who gets sacked from his bank as he beats the crap out of a teller who tries to rip off a customer for 50 rupees and so he decides to rob the bank and employs 3 blind blokes to do it. There's tons of mad Bollywood singing and dancing and the heroine is a woman who trains acrobats and other random people. So said bad guy kidnaps her little brother so she will train the blind guys!! Anyhow they pull off the robbery and then the police search starts and one of the characters get

completely bladdered and it goes on from there. Needless to say bad guy gets his "karma" as the police track him down and he tries to blame the blind guys but the police don't believe that 3 blind guys can rob a bank and then they all live happily ever after. Except the heroine who for some reason shoots herself in the head! But it was ace! I'll have to try and watch it sometime with English subtitles as my hindi isn't that great and we missed some of the jokes!

 

We got the train from Jaipur to Ajmer near Pushkar on Tuesday evening and it was kind of a comedy or errors really as we got to Ajmer quite late (as we wanted to use a cheaper train) but the buses had stopped running. So then we first decided to sleep in the station and then realized after about an hour and a million mosquitoes and the stench of urine that we should really just go to Pushkar and bang on some doors and get a room or sleep on the street...we managed to find a rickshaw driver who would take us as you have to climb a hill called Snake mountain or something and then descend the other side and with three people and three backpacks stuffed in the back of a rickshaw with a pathetic excuse of a headlight this actually turned into a hilarious trip, crawling up one side of the hill and literally flying at break neck speed down the other! What capped it all was that it was about 1.30 a.m. by then and as soon as we left Ajmer the rickshaw driver fished around in his rickshaw and suddenly we were balsted with music!! So we had the joyous company of the Venga Boys blaring out as we tore through the darkness to Pushkar! We must have woke the entire village!

 

We eventually got a place to stay and then changed to Sunset Hotel the next day. We have rooms

in a fab garden lined with banana trees and with climbing roses over the walls and fruit trees everywhere. It is THE spot to sit at sunset (similar to the Cafe Del Mar in Ibiza where everyone flocks for sunset) and chill out and the sunset is glorious here. It is so friendly and relaxed and a great place to hang out for a few days. There is little to do other than relax and wander the market streets and do a little shopping but you get no hassle and there are absolutely no rickshaws!!!

 

It is a magical little town that is a fairytale venue with the town is centered around the holy Pushkar lake. As a holy place there is no meat, no beer and no eggs but you can get cocaine, opium, other assorted drugs and Bhang lassi quite easily!!!! Sunset is the time when you are approached as you sit on the Ghats.... I am glad we are here at this point in time as it is off season and during the famous annual Camel Fair the entire town is packed and at other times very busy with tourists. We were told that in the 'season' the place where we sit can be full of 5-6 hundred people! Now we have a small gathering of about 20. Drummers come every night to play their drums as the sun goes down and you can totally relax and just take in the view. At night it is beautiful to see the houses around the lake light up and lights in trees everywhere, like a scene straight out of Arabian nights...absolutely joyous! The food isn't anything spectacular but it's ok.

 

We went shopping yesterday and you don't get any grief from shop owners dragging you into their shop but they are not so flexible on their prices but have still managed to pick up a new

t-shirt, skirt and a pair of trousers for about a fiver! It is friendly and enjoyable and completely hassle free.. a rare find!

 

Will probably stay another day or so and then head off to Jaiselmer. We have heard though that the camel safaris have been stopped there as some have accidentally wandered into Pakistan and caused a bit of a furor but we'll check it out when we get there. It will be way too hot to safari for 3 or 4 days so if we can we are thinking of taking one in the afternoon sleeping under the stars in the desert for a night and coming back in the morning...will have to see.

 

But for now I am having a thoroughly enjoyable and chilled time. The monkeys are huge and take great delight in jumping on the roofs in the morning and waking you up!! Some alarm clock! We have definitely found a little piece of paradise here!!

 

 I have managed to buy a simple camera for 15 quid so hopefully will have some pictures but they won't be that great but better than nothing. I'll try and get some to my website at some point.

 

Anyhow brekkie is calling and another day of chilling and shopping... Take care one and all, lots of love Lisa/Lillie xxxx

 

PS YVETTE - Happy Birthday for last week mate!