Day 575 - Pushing on to Pushkar

Today we ventured deeper into Rajasthan and scored a cheap ride on the public bus, despite the continuing theme of people trying to load us onto expensive tourist buses. Once again the Indian roads surprised us, with a relatively smooth highway leading most of the way into Pushkar, and only a few stops for more passengers or chai. After a quick transfer in Ajmer to another bus we arrived in Pushkar. During the journey a tout had been pushing his hotel and kept mentioning the free ride there, so we figured we'd take the ride (though we happened to be too heavy for the rickshaw rider and Adam had to get out and push!) and see if it was any good. It wasn't, so we soon headed off to find our own place, and ended up hitting the jackpot and getting a pearly white, clean room for the bargain price of NZ$3.50.

Soon we were out trying to find food, which took an eternity as prices seem to have tripled and portions halved from our Jaipur regular - though this is to be expected as Pushkar is a touristy town. But maybe the extra cost is worth it for the significant decrease in noise and increase in cleanliness ...
Our afternoon was spent wandering around the town, generally checking out what's happening and sticking our heads in and out of stores. As we made our way down one little alleyway we got a nice surprise at the end: a beautiful sculptured temple glowing golden in the setting sun. Pushkar is a small town on the edge of the desert, and as we walked along the outskirts of town we came across a mishmash of living arrangements centred around the camel trade that our Mongolian tour has taught us to avoid (that we're sure the rest of our Mongolian crew would agree with!).In we evening we searched once again for food, before retiring to our sweet room and agreeing that 2009 has certainly got off to a great start.

Adlibing expensive food (dammit).