Wednesday 14th November...Saraswati Temple, Puja and Camels.

Despite Mary being game to try again, the “2^nd attempt scooty plan” just never quite happened. Brenda decided it just wasn’t for her and it seemed pointless to clog up the roads with even more vehicles all going in the same direction so we carried on sharing the taxi. This did mean that we didn’t have a chance to stop on the way home in the evenings to get photos of the goat and cattle herds coming home, the countryside along the 30 minute drive and the people who wave and say “Namaste” on the way. Mary and I really wanted to capture some memories of the road through the desert to TOLFA so we asked the taxi driver to stop on the way yesterday morning just as we rounded a bend and met some camels! We regularly meet herds of 20 or so being driven to the grazing and watering grounds, ready for the fair. The tents and fair attractions are going up already and the town will be heaving soon. I didn't know Pushkar was nicknamed Little Israel but the place is filling up and seems to be very popular with people from Israel.

Camels on their way to the fair

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A traditional round house in the desert

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Last night, I went up to the restaurant at the hotel to meet the others for supper and Sam appeared from a hole in the roof and said come and look so I climbed up a bamboo ladder (now that takes faith!!!) and found I was standing on the flat roof where the Langur monkeys come crashing across each morning at breakfast. Sam is going to put a low fence round and convert it to a rooftop terrace, on top of the rooftop terrace they already have! 
The view is amazing but the one from the Saraswati Temple, on the hill across the town is even better so Mary and I decided to climb it today as it was our day off.
It's about 2300m high and steps all the way. Sam drove us to the car park and walked up with us. We did it in 40 minutes and views were amazing as we could look down at the fair ground and see the camels massing. It was well worth getting up at 5.15am to get to the top and see the sunrise. There was a large group of monkeys on the steps when we walked back down again and they posed professionally for us to take a few photos on the way past. We had to walk right between them and although they were very passive, you never know with monkeys so we didn’t exactly stop to tickle them under the chin!

Unfortunately, Brenda couldn’t come with us as she had been bitten on the leg by a dog the day before and although the skin was only just grazed, it was more of a crush injury and had bruised very badly. She had been taking a dog out and 3 others who were loose in the gallery (the passage between the individual kennel pens) had ganged up on it and as he snapped back, he got Brenda instead. I was just coming back in with another dog and saw it happen and the look of absolute mortification on the dogs face was obvious but by the time he had realised his mistake it was too late.

We washed the graze under a running tap with soapy water for 5 minutes as per Rabies protocol and then Brenda had to have further vaccinations and antibiotics. She is just about perforated now as another dog snapped at her last week and got her on the hand and that meant she had to have another jab. Although we were all vaccinated before we left for India, the Rabies vaccinations only buy you time and if you are bitten then it is vital that you receive prompt medical attention and have a further booster, and anti-biotic cover is also important as dogs teeth tend to carry a heave bacterial load.

Pushkar from the steps to the Saraswati Temple

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View down to the Camel fair site on the Pushkar plain

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Monkeys on the hill

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We leave Pushkar tomorrow as the town will be manic with people coming to the camel fair and the price of the hotel goes up so, as TOLFA pay for our accommodation, it is over their budget. I am feeing very sad to leave Pushkar as we have made friends here and I really love it but it will also be interesting to stay with Rachel as she shares a house with a family in a local village called Foy Sagar and she said that we will see proper village life so another experience. I also want to get a photo of the tractors if I can while we are there. They are mostly Massey 1035's, Farmtrac or Mahindra's but the trailers are all decorated with paint and signs like "use horn" on the back and most of them are used as taxis and people ride on loads of bricks or stone in the back. That's how Rachel gets to work each day and I suspect so will we.

 I ended up with a stinking cold for a few days and it has nearly gone but poor Mary has it and it’s in her sinuses so she is pretty grim for the moment.

At sundown, we went to the lake and did Puja (prayers for our family and happiness and karma) with Nandu, a Brahmin priest we have got to know. It was dark, the lights were shining across the lake where apparently Gandhi's ashes were sprinkled, the fish were jumping, the Crocs were happily removed a few years ago and it is indeed quite a spiritual experience with the right person as opposed to a rip off merchant so I'm sitting here with a red mark on my forehead mixed with bits of rice (!) and a garland of really nice smelling roses with marigolds round my neck. As virtually anything that stands still long enough gets puja'd here, and no one bats an eyelid!

Puja’d ! (but Im not telling you what I wished for)

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