Day 39 the road to and Pushkar

I had decided that I was done with the road reports because I had covered everything imaginable - wrong!  We set out on a trip that was to be just over 2 hours max on good roads, so we had a leisurely breakfast and we were off about 9:30. 

Chris leaving Jaipur with the hotel doorman:

Leaving Jaipur was as expected with traffic and construction and took a long time to get out of town.

Most photographed site in Jaipur on the way to Pushkar:

When we did, there was a beautiful divided highway that was almost boring, until we turned off to Pushkar:  20 miles of road that made the road to Wananavu in Fiji look like it was lovingly maintained.  It was a narrow path with cars and trucks and farm animals and people walking, full of ruts, broken pavement and mud holes that looked like they would swallow a bus!  What's next?
 
 After a total of 4+ hours we arrived at the Pushkar Palace Hotel, a 500 year old fort that was converted into a hotel about 2000.

Our hotel room:

Notice the door height and the door lock – very cool:

Its 19th century elegant, with antique furniture, doors and locks, but only window A/C, no internet or hair dryers, and no liquor or meat dishes because it's a Hindu holy city.  Our room overlooks a lake with palm trees partially blocking the view of people bathing in the holy lake. 

Our dining room for all meals, except breakfast, which is delivered to the room porch:

The view of the sacred lake from our room:

Sunset from the porch in Pushkar (I think they keep taking the same photo of us, slightly different background): 

Pushkar means lake and as a natural lake on the edge of the desert it became home to over 1000 temples and is a pilgrimage destination. The small city has only 20,000 people and totally surrounds the lake; it also hosts a camel fair once every year that brings 500,000 to buy and sell horses as well as camels.  Thank God it's in October after we are gone.
 
This was our first (and hopefully only) guide who was disappointing.  He called to say he'd be late and then gave us a brief tour.  Actually, he only showed us the temple of Lord Brahma, one of the 3 highest Hindu Gods.  He's the creator, one's the destroyer, and the other is the maintainer/ processor.  The lake is supposed to have been made by a lotus petal he dropped to find the spot for his temple.  There has been a statue of him and his second wife here for 1200 years; 500 years ago, a mararhaja donated a small cupola to protect it - that's the temple.  I think his first wife cursed him with never having any worship in the temple and with never having any other temples devoted to him; she was mad because she was late for their wedding here and he married #2.  We couldn't take a picture near it, but saw lots of holy monkeys outside.

Path to Lord Brahma Temple: 

Our guide couldn't explain what that story teaches us now (like our other guide with the Elephant God).  He just emphasized how many people of all religions have come for the priests' and Brahmin's blessing and donated lots of money to feed the poor, even Queen Elizabeth.

Lots of people making the trek to the lake for a blessing:

When a priest in street clothes approached us at the lake and offered to bless us and family with no pressure of contribution size, we agreed.  He used the water, said Hindu words we repeated, put red paint on our foreheads and string bracelets on wrists, and gave us petals to throw in lake.  Then he tried to get a lot of money, but Chris reminded him about no pressure, so he settled for 1000 rupees ($20).

Our blessing:

 We walked back to the hotel through the market, where we were NOT surrounded with hawkers.  We relaxed, had vegetarian dinner, and went to bed.  Considering how hard it was to get here, it was disappointing.