Pushkar and moving on

The festival at Pushkar seems to be heating up.  The music went almost all night and when I left the hotel at 5:45 am, the streets were full of people heading place, most to the ghats.

The shops in the buildings are generally very small, maybe 8' x 10' or even less sometimes.  In addition there are many streetside stalls made of wood which appear to be semi permanent, the a lot of wooden rolling carts, such as the chai and food carts.  Then there are the tarps laid out on the ground with goods laid out on them.  Both the prices and usually quality decline as you step from the actual stores down to the tarps.  The ground tarps, the carts and even some of the store fronts are homes to individuals and families at times.  This morning as I walked, it was hard to tell which lumps under tarps were people and which were goods.  Many people sleep in the streets, on benches, everywhere.  Reminds me of Cusco on the square at night, the people all lined up.  As I was passing through to the bus station this morning, I could hear a family waking up and starting their day from behind tarps hung up on their stand, it could not have been more than 6 x 8.

I took the long way to the bus station, not sure how!  I had traced and backtracked the route yesterday, because the town is laid out around the lake and none of the streets are square.  Some meander off and never connect to anything for a long time.  So I got to see Pushkar one more time.  Good thing my pack is fairly light.  Some of the 'streets' are so narrow, and some with steps, so the only things you could do on them are to walk or use an animal.  They are of course, quite old.

I wonder what Miss Manners would have to say about the protocol regarding encounters with cows on the street.  One sort of walked into me yesterday and gently head butted me.  I was afraid I had a new friend for a minute and I was pretty sure it wouldn't do to bat it on the head.

As I sat on the bus waiting to leave, there were 3 cows right outside my window (holsteins, Clay!) eating some sort of greens someone had brought to them.  Mind you, this is smack dab in the middle of town.  Walking down the streets lined with shops, restaurants, etc, you'd just see a cow, or a goat or monkeys hanging about.

The bus is sort of like an old school bus but was a grade higher in it's early life.  On one side there are 2 seats and the other 3, all padded and upholstered with fabric, which is now old, torn, worn and dirty.  The driver's area is glassed off, but has a window to the rest of the bus, through which passengers who want to sit up there can pass.  In addition to the driver's seat there are a couple of benches and at one point I counted 6 people up there.  When we started out the bus was only half full but that soon changed.  This was not an express bus, so we stopped often.  But that is partly why I chose this kind of bus for this trip, I really wanted to see the countryside and the villages, etc.  I would not take this kind of bus for a trip any longer than today's, but I am glad I took it today.  The driver has two assistants, one seems to be senior and he collects fares and bosses people around if necessary.  The other one yells out the door announcing "Jodhpur, Jodhpur" at stops and groups of people and then gets them on the bus as fast as possible.  Anyway, the trip is about 5 hours, I had water and raisins if needed, but we stopped in a couple of places where vendors came on the bus.  I don't know what to call what I ate, but they were good and only 5 rupees each.  Let's see, that is less than 2 cents, I think.

I am ready to leave Pushkar, it is kind of touristy in all the bad ways but does not have typical tourist services.  For instance I have only seen one bank and ATM in town, there is no place to get reliable info, only touts who all have something to sell.  Even your hotel staff have something to sell and I'm not sure safety is a major concern of anyone's.  For sure I did not feel safe at my hotel, and I think that's a first for me.

The people working at my hotel were all men, and yesterday one who I think  is a boss came out of a room near the stairwell as I was approaching it to go down.  He said hello and asked how things were.  I said fine, and kept going.  He then said, 'I want to show you one thing' and gestured toward the room he had just walked out of.  I did not break stride, just kept going and said no, thank you.  Then last evening I came home about dark, and went up to the second floor to the little restaurant as I knew they had bottles of water they sell and I wanted one for the trip.  No one was there just then but I was sure they'd show up and so I sat down and watched the street scene below.  One employee, who seemed fairly junior, and who had been too friendly previously to me, came up and tried to interest me in an ayurvedic massage-hmmm....  Sometimes you just know something stinks.  He persisted for a while and I kept refusing and finally said I just wanted to look at the people and get some water.  He was overly familiar and kept touching my shoulder everytime he said something.  Then the regular restaurant guy came up, he is ok, I paid for the water and massage dude left.  Then another man came up, who I thought worked there as I had seen him in the lobby several times.  I asked him about checking out early (I had personal knowledge that no one would be up before 7 from the morning of my arrival!) and he then told me he did not work there and I apologized.  He laughed and shook my hand and wanted to know my room number.  I pretended not to remember it.  Then I gave up and went to my room.  Well, the power in my room was out.  The lights in other rooms and on the balcony were on, and my bathroom lights worked, but not the room.  The worst of this was the ceiling fan didn't work.  It all may have been a perfectly innocent coincidence, but I decided to put up with no power, since the bathroom light worked.  It felt like maybe it would be a good excuse to get in my room.  All this because I was a woman alone.  But your hotel is not supposed to be like that!  The one I have in Jodhpur is completely different.

My seat mates varied throughout the trip today, from a young woman with a large bundle tied up in a white cloth, to 2 young ladies on their way to school to several different men.  The girls were quite interested in talking with me.  I had read that people here are quite inquisitive and it's considered acceptable to ask strangers personal questions.  They started with my name and where I was from, then was I married, then did I have a boyfriend.  I could tell they felt sorry for me when I said no to that.  The best I could tell, they are both working in some sort of hospital/medical training school. One is 17 and one is 18 (they asked me how old I was, so I asked them too).  They asked for a memory of me when they were getting off, so I gave them each a business card-that was kind of funny.  Then I asked to take their photos, but they declined, one said her father does not approve, so I said I understood and we parted happily.