Pushkar is a holy city, as such it is meat and alcohol free. We took an early morning hike up to a temple on a mountain overlooking the town. Our guide was worried about monkey attacks ("to them everything is food") on the summit so took a big stick.
At the summit we set up with chairs at a cafe and drank chai. The cafe owner's dog patrolled vigilently around our feet. Soon enough as the sun rose a troop of langurs began hopping up the mountainside. The greatly outnumbered dog managed to drive them into the trees and keep them away from us. The sunrise was gorgeous, enhanced by the silence, sweet tea and the beauty of pushkar itself.
We then visited a temple right by pushkar's central lake. They had cattle and monkeys roaming around calmly unbothered due to their sacred status. I was head butted by a bull, which was quite a shock as i had let him past but it must have been breeding season as i saw a few bulls squaring off against each other. A girl in our group made the mistake of smiling at a langur monkey, which is seen by them as threatening and got hissed and charged at. So stay out of the bulls' ways and don't smile at the monkeys!
That evening we took a camel ride to the desert for a cultural show and dinner. My camel was called john, which i think is a strange name for a camel in rural rajasthan. After an hour's walk, on arrival one camel rolled on his back and melodramatically rolled over and played dead with his legs in the air.
The food was good and there were entertainments of singing, dancing and fire breathing. Mercifully for our legs (and the camels) we were driven in jeeps back to the hotel.
Next morning we caught a train to Udaipur. This city is well known for its large manmade lake and detailed illustrations. The rulers of Udaipur had always resisted the advances of the muslim Mughals. One princess, on hearing that a mughal ruler found her attractive cut her own head off and had it presented to him to show her resentment and resistance.
While waiting for a demonstration of Udaipur painting we played cricket with some local kids. My bowling was terrible and Kirren had to bowl for me but I managed to stay in til the end batting, we still lost tho. Kirren got peacocks painted on her thumb nails by competing painting salesmen, the left one is better but took far longer!
We took a boat tour around the city's lakes and tried our hand at indian cookery. The venue had a beautiful view of the city palace which we enjoyed before heading off early morning to Mumbai.
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