The Road to Pushkar

Purdah is not unique to Muslims here in Rajasthan. Yet, this Hindu woman didn’t mind me photographing her.

Yesterday was spend almost exclusively in travel. We spend five hours traveling from Jodhpur to Pushkar after a leisurely morning spent packing and enjoying a nice breakfast on the hotel’s veranda. The option according to our driver was “The long road that is nicer, but you won’t see anything or the short road, that is not as nice but we will see more and get there faster” Hmm, hard choice. Needless to say, we went with the short road[1. Actually the trip would have taken only 3 or 4 hours but we stopped often to take photos] . The only real problem was by the time we were on the road at 9:45 am the sun was high and the light harsh. Frankly, there are not a lot of trees for people to sit under for shade and for softer light.  So most of the drive was spent looking out the windows at harsh shadows and bleached out landscape. But we made due stopping at covered tea stalls and village centers often crowned with a large tree for shade.

Once we arrived to Pushkar, I started to think I made a mistake booking us into this city. It seemed very touristy and full of hippies. One of the few places to visit is the Brahma Temple, one of the only a few in the world. But no cameras are allowed inside. But my fears vanished as we walked the local market. Splashed with color, the place felt like Old Delhi in Technicolor. Today we will explore some more and then try out a camel safari and ride out to the dunes to watch the sunset. Yeah, I know touristy. But sometimes you have to be a tourist.

We stopped for chai on the road and this man was sitting near us. Could you have let this scene pass without photographing it?

At first Pushkar seemed like a mistake in our itinerary but it soon proved a very colorful place.

This little old lady sells homemade bracelets to people passing by on the Pushkar streets.