Pushkar

Pushkar is a holy city and is dedicated to Lord Brahma. Only few temples in the world are built for Brahma. Most temples are relatively new since the Muslim conquest destroyed most of Pushkar decades ago. None of the temples in this town are mind blowing. What I like about Pushkar is the amount of temples for the small size town and the people. The pilgrims come from far away to pay tribute to Brahma. These men are usually old, very thin and wear notoriously old clothes or just towels to begin with. They do their religious thing while locals take care of business and foreigners enjoy the show from the roof tops. Meat and alcohol are prohibited and only bang is served. Bang is a local drug of India. We hiked two of the surrounding hills, which both have a temple on the top because of the religious significance of the hills it self. These hikes turned out to be very adventurous.
The lake in the middle of the city is surrounded by temples. In the evening you can see the reflection of the sunset... well in fact you cant, there is no water. So there is a big hole in the middle of the city.
We met Eric in Pushkar who has been traveling with his Royal Enfield from southern India all the way to Delhi. He is here to gather inspiration for his profession as a painter (www.erikolson.ca). We made a long bicycle ride to some very disappointing Shiva temples 10 km away. But the road was beautiful and we some very interesting locals. Then we stayed in a sacred cave in the hills next to the temples. The sun and the bicycles were unforgiven and made it very hard to do some mileage.
Eric had a motorbyke accident a week later only 25 km before his final destination. He broke his collar bone and has some other problems. But he survived and is at a painter retreat close to Delhi. Hope you get better.
The fat man on the picture has not talked for the last 5 years. He serves as a guru to the shop owner in the back of the picture.
Pushkar is a nice place, if you can ignore the shit and like monkeys.