21/03/2010

Emer and I checked out of our hotel at 11 where we headed to a lassi place to fill up on lassi’s for breakfast, we chilled out there before heading to the bus station to get a bus back down to Ajmer and for an 8 hour bus journey to Udaipur. We had 10 hours to kill as we organized a night bus to the next destination departing at 11.30.

We went to go see some of the sights around Ajmer but only seeing ending up seeing the red temple that displayed a miniature golden palace behind scrached glass or metal grills making it difficult to get a good picture of it. Also, unfortunately the miniature temple, like the glass windows were very dirty and dusty making the whole attraction a little disappointing although for 5 rupees, still worth seeing. I told one of the officials of the place that it was in quite a state and they said to come back in 5 years time by which time they would have cleaned it up.... how very prompt of them.

After getting lost through the streets of Ajmer and finding some food (Potato Curry) we headed for the lake looking for one of the two parks that Ajmer had to offer. Eventually we found one where we sat under a tree where locals kept on approaching us, we just pretended that we spoke jibberish and they went away.

Emer and I discussed what the rules of engagement for an Indian if wanting to approach us, they are:

- Cant own a shop

- Cant have a friend who owns a shop

- Does not have a tuk-tuk, rickshaw, or want to take us anywhere

- Has nothing to sell us

- Does not want our email address to ‘contact’ us if they ever came to our country

- Does not want to take a picture of us

- Is not in association of any type of Mafia

- And can only take 5 minutes of our time.

- If we are approached by the saying “my friend, my friend”, they are automatically turned around.

I know these may sound harsh, but this comes from weeks of experience/annoyances in India.

Anyways, after a little while in the park we got bored and decided to head back up to Pushkar to use up the rest of the day and the bus trip alone would only take up an hour.

The journey back up was terrible as I had to stand on the roasting bus dripping with sweat.

We filled ourselves up with lassi’s and food from a popular falafel shop where we bumped into Francis again, he really is such a strange guy and possibly gay.

We headed back down to Ajmer at 9 where some of the locals told us there were no buses running, fortunately for us there was a jeep driver going down to Ajmer picking up passangers. The driver did however try and charge us 100 rupees for the journey, obviously trying to rip us off but we managed to get it down to rs20 each. Another downfall for this 30 minute trip was that the driver wanted to squeeze as many people into the jeep as possible, I honestly would have thought only 10 people could fit, but India being a crazy crazy place the driver managed to cram in 16 people.

Because Pushkar is sacred to Lord Brahma, all food within city limits is strictly veg: meat, eggs and alcohol are banned, I was craving all these things and there wasn’t much to offer around the bus station I was however blessed by the great taste of two boiled eggs… I really don’t know how Vegans can survive.

At 11 we went in search of the bus we were suppose to be on, accidentally boarding the wrong one also going to Udaipur, despite having the wrong ticket (we had the deluxe bus) all the locals told us to sit down and to store our luggage in the spaces above the seats. After a while of confusion we got off the bus and went to the right bus stand.

The bus we were on was spacious and comfortable and we had all 5 of the seats at the rear of the bus to ourselves, the seats were comfortable until the bus starting moving. EVERY nook and cranny the bus crazy driver passed over on route to Udaipur sent me and Emer jumping in the air by at least an inch.

Red temple, Ajmer