Pushkar & Monkey Poop

The holy lake of Pushkar, where Lord Brahma dropped a lotus flower and created the lake in its spot.

A lake-sized pot of milk being boiled for making delicious masala chai (spiced tea)

Tourist bazaar (bad hippy clothes)

Pushkar is a holy temple town with a mythical lake where Hindu pilgrims pray and bathe. It’s relatively small and very quiet compared to everywhere else we’ve been in Rajastan. Our hotel, the Paramount Palace, upgraded to us for free to a really nice room with a balcony and views of the town. However, we found we were disappointed after all the hype we heard about Pushkar – other than the Brahma temple and the small lake, there wasn’t much else to do in town except browse the tourist bazaars of handicrafts and Indo-western clothing. We spent most of our time relaxing in our room and at the rooftop restaurant in our hotel. The most exciting thing that happened in Pushkar was when I opened the door to the balcony in our room one evening and came face to face with a monkey that was sitting on a chair. Judging by the expression on the monkey’s face and my own racing heartbeat, we were both equally surprised and dismayed/scared shitless by each other’s sudden appearance. I quickly shut the balcony door and left the monkey alone…and in the morning discovered that he’d left plenty of poop on the chair outside as thanks for my trouble.