Pushkar - hippies & priests

After 10 days of traveling through big cities this place was a good point for resting and reflection. Pushkar is known for being an important pilgrim centre for Hindus but you can also see the beginnings of a hippy community taking place. It is a small village, thank the gods for that... All of them: Vishnu, Brahma and Ali Baba. No tuk tuks buzzing their way through the streets and less people hassling you for money or being your best friend before taking you into their shops where you should really just have a look...no need to buy...seriously. Nevertheless our nerves hit the roof after being taken into a religious ceremony where we pray for good karma for our families and were expected to pay an astronomical amount of money to help the poor (the 'priests' looked very well nourished somehow). I told him that my family always had bad karma and therefore I was unwilling to pay anything, let alone a small fortune. After a lot of arguing I gave him 100 IR and left with Arne. Later while waiting at the bus station we were approached by a guy who really wanted to talk English to a foreigner and finally got the courage to do so. He told us about his friend from New York (side note: funny how these Indians always have some friend somewhere. I'm still waiting for the guy that tells me he's besties with Obama... Any time now...) who left more than 5000 IR behind; I guess we didn't do too bad after all...

We should also mention a guy we meet whilst going around the sacred lake who wanted to take us to his home at first, later was showing us his bank credit, telling us how much money the government gives him a month (500 IR/month) and finally (i guess you already know were i am going) asking us for money by giving us his account number and pin code... We have him few rupees and he offered us pod... Was we for real?!?

On the other hand, our little hotel served us the best vegetarian food we had so far on this trip! Everyone was extremely friendly and eager to help and although we didn't have many luxuries (I had to bucket shower, the mattress was pretty hard too) the place was special.