We arrived at around 5.30am so went to bed straight away and woke up around mid-day. We had a little wander around the main market street which was full of tourists, had lunch and sorted out our laundry before heading to the Holy lake. Pushkar is a sacred Hindu site where there is 52 ghats around the lake where people bathe. When we got to the lake two men gave us both some flowers to throw into the lake. They followed us down the steps and took us both to opposite ends of one of the ghats. They started talking about good Karma and good luck and asked us to repeat after them. We both started doing this (on opposite ends of the ghat) and whatever we were repeating, we had no idea as they were speaking Hindu. They asked us both in English how many people are in our families (parents and siblings) and then after we had thrown flowers and rice into the water, had been given a bindi dot on our heads and repeated lots of things, they asked us for a donation which we both agreed to but then said to repeat after them again.. The man with Kerry told her to repeat and then Said ‘2000 rupee donation’, at which point Kerry said no that’s too much, lied and said she had no money and stood up to walk over to Jonho. When Kerry got to Jonho, he had apparently promised to give 3000 rupee and by this point had already given 500 and had 2 men stood over him demanding more. We both ran off from them and they were coming after shouting for us to pay. Looking back, it was pretty funny but Jonho is still annoyed about this. We went to a restaurant after and asked the waiter who told us that there is genuine priests around that do this, but they would explain and the donation amount is a gesture of your own choice. We got scammed. We went back to the guest house (Jonho continued to sulk about the scam) and we chilled out in the garden area on the hammock. We went out for food in the evening and then back to the room. Apparently there is no drinking or eating meat in most of the places here due to it being a holy city but we got scammed by a holy man – so what do you think?
The next day, we headed back to the lake at the same entrance as the day before hoping the same men would try and scam us again – but we didn’t see them. We walked around the lake, stopping off for lunch and drinks on the way and taking selfies with Indians. We actually got one photo which made us laugh so Kerry asked them to take it on her phone as well. It was a proper family photo, all sat on the stairs. We came back to the guest house afterwards for some more hammock time!
The next day, we took a cable cart up to the top of the hill where there was a temple and lots of monkeys around it. Up here you got a view of the city which was nice. We had a walk around for the rest of the day, stopping for lunch etc and in the evening met up with Will and Laura again for food and drinks. YES they sell beer, but serve it in a mug so they can’t get in trouble. We ended up out quite late and had quite a bit to drink!
On our final day we decided to go to a place with a swimming pool. So we paid £1 each and chilled out there for the day with Will and Laura before we had to get our bus to Jaipur…
Kerry and Jonho's Travels 