Pushkaring in Pushkar

Shilpi spoke in slightly yelling and urgent tone - "Give me your hand" as if we were about to miss some train. Before I could have thought of something, Tarun pushed me and Shilpi pulled me. BTW, we were about to miss our train. 

Let me begin from the beginning.

On a sleepy Tuesday afternoon we decided to travel for Pushkar Camel Fest on a coming Friday and like we always do we made an awesome plan without the but ofcourse details of hotel reservation, train reservation etc etc. After all we are the born travelers and who plans that much and we knew we can do everything at the very last moment so we booked tatkal train reservation from Delhi to Ajmer for a slightly chilly Saturday morning but little did we know was chill was something we would care very less about when our train will break down somewhere in Haryana on a no mans land kind of place and we will make plans with some locals whose friends are travelling from another train which will cross our staggered train in a while and we will ask them to stop that train so that we can hop on that to complete our journey and somehow reach Ajmer. But did I tell you that in a haste of getting on to the new train, we actually got onto a General Bogie? 

Yes here we were, all three musketeer, in a general bogie of some train we had no idea about and which was crowded to its extremes with all faces staring at us. We looked at each other and laughed in Happiness. Hell ya our trip had already begun.

Before we knew it, the whole compartment became our friend (all thanks to Tarun and his witty Jaat sense of humor- I am a Jaat Fan from that day onwards). The journey is all we seek and it was a journey with laughter, fun and love and we cared very little for being on our feet for hours in Train.

Journey from Ajmer to Pushkar-

Its hardly a few kilometers away and you can take a cab for a nominal price like us but in our case our dear Shilpi got compliment from the Taxi driver - "madam apke baal bahut mast hai" and he was so impressed with her that he did not take the additional 40 rupees for toll tax and took us in the city of Pushkar saying we were his family. he he

What to do when you reach Pushkar -

Are you kidding me? Just leave your bags and run towards the market where whole scene is in place. I had never seen that many colors in my life. Since the Pushkar Camel Fest is world wide famous, it had lots of foreigners with considerably big lenses to cover the fest and locals selling everything from ganja guns to authentic camel teeth products. The ghat was filled with devotees as it is knows that one dip in the holy water during this time will clean all your paaps. The Brahma temple had a queue till my eyes could see as devotes had come from all over the India to take blessings of diety Brahma. Do you know that this is the only temple in India which is for God Brahma - the creator of our reins who was known to be cursed by his wife as he chose another wife to perform an important yagna and his wife savitri cursed him due to which he can not be worshiped anywhere else but Pushkar. I so wish wives today would have had that kind of power too.

What to eat in Pushkar-

Since it was a Camel fair which happens only once every year and opens doors for people from around the world, there was everything for every pallet. You can enjoy the Lebanese rolls to noodle to authentic Daal Baati Churma.

What you must not miss when you are in Pushkar Camel Fest-

1) No matter what you eat and where you eat, you must try the the malpua at sarwadia mishthan bhandar. Thank you Rocky and Mayur for this recommendation (Rocky and Mayur visit Pushkar).

2) Dont miss the Camel race - we missed :(

3) Take a dip in holy water or wash feet and hands like we did.

4) Take crazy pictures like we did.

5) Enjoy the amusement rides on Giant wheels and Columbus swing.

6) Take pictures with pretty camels.

We got lucky- While we were tired from feet but not from heart and were exploring Pushkar late at night we saw some concert going on and there were no banners to tell who is performing and we felt "hmmm maybe some local group" but we got lucky. It was Indian Ocean. I think this was the best part of our trip and Shilpi and me were the two happiest souls.

On this note, lets finish with a song from Indian Ocean - Alam Alam (Khandisa).