This travelogue is about a 4 day road trip to Pushkar and
Day 1 :
We started early from Gurgaon and got to see the 
sunrise after a very long time. We reached Pushkar by 11, took up a small RTDC hotel and set out to the lake post a lunch. At the (holy) lake while one of us consultants took a short nap, another one spent his time photographing the pigeons there.
We returned for a 5 minute break to our hotel (which became a 1.5 hr nap). We then headed out to the Brahma temple – legend has it that this is the only Brahma temple ever.
Dinner was uneventful (we used Lonely Planet to choose the restaurant - hint), with some of us playing with our new cameras and some of us trying to fill our stomach with little food.
Day 2 :
Next morning, we set out for Savitri temple ( she’s Brahma’s wife and as myth(ology) has it, the temple is located where Brahma and Savitri were supposed to meet). It’s about a 45 minute climb on a mountain with well constructed stairs and the climb is totally worth the effort. On the way, you see a lot of langoors and I liked the site (everyone might not). The view of the entire city and somewhat what looked like a valley to me is great and only gets better as you climb. The temple is small and simple. Another session of photography was underway. Something uncommon was happening too - one of us consultants was on a conference call with her team. Some background – this consultant of ours was extremely overworked and she actually dosed off while visiting the ghats of Pushkar the previous afternoon.
Once back from the temple, we drove into a road which led to nowhere (or so we knew to the best of our knowledge). However because of dipping fuel levels and some of us (including me) being a little paranoid about the fuel indicators’ accuracy, we did not explore much about the ‘nowhere’ which the road led to and soon were on our way back. Not learning from our mistakes the previous day, we again took to Lonely Planet for lunch recommendations – the results were no better.
Learnings about pigeons’s
From past experiences, I have learnt that pigeons are one of the dumbest birds around.
From trip to Pushkar I learnt a few more things –
- They are very good at eating bajra seeds – they can clear the entire ground in less than 5 minutes and you wouldn’t even know that there was some food there 5 minutes ago
- They are not very friendly with each other and do not seem to believe in sharing food – that is, if 2 birds have found food, they would not bother calling the rest of the gang
- Every now and then they’d fly out to scan the ground for food
- They have nothing better to do in life and just keep sun bathing and sitting around
- They shit everywhere and dirty the place
Other things/learning from visit to Pushkar (not related to pigeons)
- Pushkar is not only a dry city, it’s a completely vegetarian one too.
- If you have a sweet tooth, ‘mal pua’ is what you must try in Pushkar.
- Lonely Planet
- Rajasthan is not a place for north Indian food lovers – we could not get dal makhani anywhere and I really missed it!
Day 2 - Continued
We then headed to
About 20-30 phone calls later, we got ourselves hotel bookings at a vintage hotel in the old city, overlooking the fort. The view from the rooftop was great. I thank Lonely Planet for this recommendation and also the 20 others we called before we called this one.
Day 3 :
Morning started with a good breakfast at the roof-top overlooking the fort. This was followed by a walk to the fort ( here again, we met langoors on the way).
The fort is majestic and one of the best maintained fort’s I’ve seen. Do visit the fort’s gift shop – I’m usually fairly miserly but this gift shop has a few nice and affordable items.
We had lunch at a restaurant in the fort which had a very subtle way of warning people of the wait ahead of them in case they order food – their logo was “good food takes time to prepare”.
An auto ride took us to jaswant thada (another memorial in someone’s memory). We did a good job of haggling with the auto-wala – our hotel had provided us with a list of various auto rates, and we extrapolated, acted all knowledgeable and also willing to walk the short distance, all of which helped in the haggling. I enjoy haggling.
We then headed out looking for some genuine desert land (sand dunes and all) towards Osiyan (which is the apparently the beginning of the desert ). However, to my dismay, we ended up at a posh camp site (fancy tents with fully tilled bathrooms, at 7k a day for 2 people). We entertained ourselves with a camel ride (2 people on a camel – looking back a bad decision - poor camel– the camel owner sounded as if 2 on a camel was fairly normal and would not tire the poor animal out). Add to that the fact that it was almost sunset when we got the camel, which meant that the camel had pretty much earned its bread for the day – all in all – the camel was pretty tired by the end of the journey. Now, my camel was a young fella, named “Pappu” which became the butt of all jokes for the rest of the day (“Pappu” being a highly infamous colleague). Top that with the fact that ‘Pappus’ backseat was a bit tilted and I was scared of falling over, cause of which I was tilted in the opposite direction. The ride was not very pleasant – it was getting cold – and we saw no sand dunes – and I (in particular) has seen much better sand dunes in Jaisalmer (which, I highly recommend in case someone wants to see “real” desert land). However, we did see deer and peacocks on the way and fairly nice sunset sky.
On the drive back from Osiyan we saw the moon rising and one could almost mistake it for the sun – a bright orange, full moon.
Post Osiyan , we headed for dinner to the great Umaid Bhavan – the current Raja’s palace residence, which also has a hotel / dining place being run by Taj, and a museum which is open during the day. Well, so we, ‘consultants’ thought that we can afford one such luxurious dinner and there we were all ready to dine at this highly royal place. Now, one must remember, money cannot buy everything, and we were not royalty, neither did we remotely appear like one in our jeans and sweaters and jackets (that too post a ride in the desert). The attendant very politely, first tried to shoo us away by telling us how expensive the dinner was. When that did not work, he took guidance from his big boss and told us that the dining hall was all booked not only for that night, but for the next 2 weeks – completely!
Feeling highly dejected, we headed out for a simple dinner in the old city where we were staying.
Day 4:
Next morning was early to rise, early to pack up, breakfast under the blue sky facing the fort, and heading out to Umaid Bhavan museum (open to all, upon purchase of a easily affordable ticket). Did some photography, realized how much free time and money royalty has to pursue the best of hobbies – polo, flying.
The drive back was fairly uneventful – everyone was tired, the Rajasthan roads were still good, but the trucks and trailers on them were not so good. One starts appreciating Laloo Prasad Yadav for encouraging transport through train. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened to the roads had there been no “maal gaadi”. I am all in to promote more “maal gaadi’s”.
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