Pushkar

Sunday, October 28, 2007
Pushkar, India
Pushkar is one of the oldest and holiest cities in India. No meat or alcohol is allowed inside the city--fortunately for us we stayed in a hotel slightly outside the actual bounds of Pushkar. Our one full day here was rather eventful. Actually, just getting here was eventful.

We had our first bout of sickness, which meant leaving the previous city an hour late. Then came the real fun. On a one lane dirt road, we ran up against this tractor, precipitating a Mexican standoff. It took several minutes, but eventually our guide Brij managed to sort things out and get the tractor to back up so we could pass...and make a U-turn! Oops, turned out we had made a wrong turn a while back and were well off the path to Pushkar. We ended up getting in at around 4:30, without having had a lunch break.

The next day we went to the Pushkar temple and lake, where we got this excellent group photo taken. That night was the camel ride! So much fun. We rode around for about a half hour, dismounted to watch the sunset, and then back on for another half hour or so. Getting on and off (and staying on!) is a bit of work, as you can see in the video.

A very rare and special experience later that night--I got drunk. I rarely ever drink, and a couple of the girls on tour who were kicking back several Kingfishers with every meal were giving me a hard time about it. So I promised to drink that night. Before dinner, we had a tribal dance performance where I knocked back a couple of rum and cokes and vodka and 7-ups. Being such an infrequent drinker, I'm quite the lightweight, so four or so drinks was enough to get me severely inebriated. I did some not-so-smooth dance moves when invited up by the dancers, including a yoga-inspired backbend, which I repeated at dinner for those who missed it. But I soon succumbed to the intoxication, and had to be escorted back to my hotel room by Joanna (thanks dear!) to begin to sleep it off. Surprisingly, I wasn't particularly hung over the next morning.

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