Day 54 - The Camel Festival

After a very comfortable night in our best hotel yet we had a nice breakfast with everyone and then set off to see the festival.

If we were complaining that in Delhi we didn't get enough carnage or dirt then we certainly changed that today. For the final day of the camel festival the place was absolutely rammed. Like, absolutely rammed. Pilgrims from all over the region mixing with camel traders mixing with families come for the fun and mixing with teenagers come for the party.

Walking through the madness was to be buffetted, grabbed, shoved aside, hair stroked, back patted, hand shaken, glared at, smiled at, pushed, pulled, sometimes all at once. The streets underfoot, on which a lot of people were barefoot, were certainly dirtier than Delhi. We walked through the thick of it past cobra chamers, religious leaders sitting on the corners, people ritually bathing in the not-very-clean-but-holy water, vendors, market stalls and beggars.

And then the selfies started. Every 10th person wanted a selfie, and often not just one. There would be a whole photoshoot with different members of the family and different combinations. Like in Kazahkstan, with the first few it was endearing, but after the (literally) 30th we started to feel somewhat violated. People didn't like being turned down and were often persistent. People would grab you, drap their arm around you, and pat you while petitioning for pictures. One guy started with a handshake which became extremely firm to the point he was spoiling for a fight. He started pretending to trip me at which point I used what little upper body strength I have remaining after 2 months on the bike to remove myself and keep walking. That was the exception though and I expect because he was jealous of all of the attention we were getting.

After an hour we had walked not actually many kilometers and finally saw our first camels! There weren't many left - it being the last day - most had been sold and left. A very friendly camel farmer, who walked 50 camels for 5 days to the fair, took us under his wing and showed us around. He was in high spirits having sold every last camel! They cost between 1000 and 10,000 euros, so quite a bit pricier than Morocco and Kazahkstan! They have dancing and racing camels here so it makes sense, but it means that I can't introduce a new currency valuation based on the price of a camel, hey ho.

We didn't fancy fighting through the carnage again on the way back, so we caught a camel and then a tuk tuk back to a beautiful restaurant near the hotel for lunch. India has been awesome for vegetarians - meat dishes are marked as "non vegetarian" and not the other way around if the whole restaurant isn't vegetarian to start with. In Pushkar the whole town is alcohol free and vegetarian, so you don't even have to find a vegetarian restaurant, you can just go anywhere and order anything! One tourist restaurant made my companions, in particular the Australians, very happy indeed by offering Red Bull (wink wink). After ordering four Red Bulls, a boy of 10 disappeared on his bike and came back with cans of Kingfisher beer in his rucksack which he discretely poured into coffee mugs on the table!

It was an afternoon of planning for us while the others went back out to explore more. Congratulations Karen on her 26th peak in her quest for 70 peaks before she's 70, after walking to the top of the hill overlooking the town!

In the evening we went to watch the big Pind Deep Daan where a lot of people gather on the final day of the festival to worship on the banks of the lake. People are so friendly - I had two long chats with people who'd started the conversation with "welcome to India" and learnt a lot about the ritual I was watching. It was a very peaceful and united event in contrast to the chaos of the day!

Food spend today: 21.63 euros