Showered and went up to the roof for breakfast.
 
Mr Guru picked us up at 9:00. We told him how Ken was attacked by a cow and he said "Never believe an animal!" He says cattle, monkeys, water buffalo etc can all attack without warning and for no apparent reason. Told us a story about a woman who was just walking by a bull on the street and with a sideways swing of his head the bull disembowelled her. All the people had to help her pick up her innerds off the road and take her to a hospital. So I guess I'm lucky.

The highway out of Udaipur was top notch - divided with good pavement. The land here is mountainous. But the highway had large cuts through the rock and even a pair of tunnels to make a straight road out of what would otherwise have been a very twisty path through rough terrain.

On the way our driver pointed out a Jain monk walking on the road. (These men do not permit themselves to make any attachments, so they just walk from town to town all the time, never staying in one place.) The mode of dress is quite distinctive, and we spotted another one a few hours further along the highway.

We also saw a big truck turned on it's side in the road
 

A baby playing (apparently unsupervised) on the shoulder of the highway.
 
And so on and so forth...
 
After a long drive we turned off the good highway and followed a secondary road for about 25 km, but at much slower speeds due to the heavy local traffic.
 
At about 2 pm we pulled up at the Master Paradise Hotel on the outskirts of Pushkar. Our driver warned that if anyone tries to give us flowers we need to be aware that on accepting the flower we would then be obligated to go to the lake with a hindu priest and have prayers recited, after which a large fee would be demanded by the priest. On the up side, once the ceremony is complete they tie a red thread around your wrist and then then no other priests will bother you.

Pushkar is the sight of an important Hindu temple to Brahma and of a holy lake to which pilgrims come great distances to immerse themselves in the holy water. Pushkar Lake is completely enclosed by 52 bathing ghats that form a continuous staircase all around the lake. And surrounding the lake and the ghats are over 500 Hindu temples.

According to the Google, the lake used to have man-eating crocodiles in it that took a significant number of pilgrims each year. (Some considered it lucky to be one of those eaten by the crocs!) When the British arrived they dealt with the crocodiles, so there are none in the lake any more, though they still live in other lakes in the area.

Pushkar is also where the famous 'camel fair' is held every year. We just missed that as it ended about a week ago. There were still a few camels to be seen though.
 
This is the nicest hotel we've stayed in since we arrived in India. As we checked in we asked for the wifi code and the clerk said it would cost 100 rupees extra per person as it's not included. Heather said okay, but it better be fast, cause if we are paying extra for it we expect a good connection. To which the clerk replied, "Oh...it is...um...I'll give it to you for free."

We don't have any activities scheduled for the rest of the day, so we walked into town to see the famous lake. On the way we encountered a small funeral procession carrying a wrapped body on a frame made of wooden poles. At one point the procession seemed confused about where to go next, so they put the frame down in the middle of the street to ponder the question.
 
We also saw a cow getting chased out of a local restaurant.
 
It wasn't long before we were approached by someone on the street trying to give us a flower. Remembering our driver's warning, we refused, though we were pressed hard a couple of times.

At the lake there are signs warning tourists to take off their shoes before approaching the lake. Shoes are hard for the crocodiles to digest. (Ha...just kidding.) As with all Hindu holy places, the shoes have to come off. We wanted to walk all the way round the lake, but there was a lot of poop (cow and bird) on the steps so we didn't want to remove our shoes. We stayed up at the top of the ghats so that we could keep our shoes on.
 
Before we got very far around the lake we were approached again about the flower ceremony. We decided to go ahead and get it over with since we were clearly not going to avoid harassment otherwise. and just limit the donation to a reasonable amount. Numbers ending in a 1 are considered lucky for gifts and donations so we went with 101 rupees.

We removed our shoes and the priests led us down to the water's edge. There the priest made a mix of the flower petals and some red paste and holy water which we cupped in our hands and chanted along with the priest. We also got a smudge of red paste applied in the middle of our foreheads.

During the ceremony the priests tried to get us to commit larger donations. When that failed they tried getting us to buy prayers for our kids and buy food for our deceased grand parents. They were clearly disappointed when we didn't bite, but gave us our red thread bracelets nonetheless.
 
We continued around the lake, but now without harassment from the priests. At one point we passed a bearded man in a turban and orange robes. He nodded to us as we passed and in excellent English he said, "hey, do you need any weed?"

Once we completed our circumambulation of the lake we stopped at the Sunset Cafe for food and drinks and to watch the sun go down over the lake. No alcohol, though. As a holy Hindu city, Pushkar prohibits alcohol, tobacco and meat within city limits. All the restaurants are vegetarian and none serve beer.
 
Once the sun was gone we walked back to the hotel and used the wifi for a couple hours. When the restaurant opened at 7 pm we had a second supper.