Pushkar

After two nights in Jaipur, we hopped on a bus to the small, religious hamlet Pushkar.  It is believed that Brahma dropped a lotus flower on the earth and thus appeared Pushkar.  It is a Hindu pilgrimage town with one of the only Brahma temples in the world; the town surrounds a small holy lake.  Being a very religious, the entire town follows strict Hindu principles of vegetarianism.  This means nowhere in town can you buy meat or eggs, and no food is cooked with either.  Men and women also cannot embrace or kiss in public, there is no alcohol, and no shoes can be worn within 40 feet of the lake.

It took us about 40 minutes to loop the lake on foot.  This town is so slow and peaceful and has a magical quality.  We are staying at an incredible little place called Hotel Everest.  We have a large room with a small balcony for about $13/night.  We were informed that we should close our balcony door when we leave otherwise monkeys might come in!

Jeff from the opposite side of the lake where we are staying

Many of the buildings here are painted light blue.

One of the many monkeys we've seen around.  This one was sitting above us in a restaurant and a few seconds later he dropped the chapati he was eating on some diners!

Our room with the morning light coming in.

Today we hiked up to a temple.  It took about an hour and it was quite strenuous.  It was incredible to see Hindi women making the trek up this hill to visit the temple, many of whom were quite old yet kept pace with Jeff and me. The view was great from the top and was well worth the hike.

The start of the hike.

View from the temple

We sat and enjoyed the view for a while before climbing back down

We'll be here for a couple days just reading and relaxing.  There's no TV and frequent power outages and it is actually quite difficult to not hold hands when we walk around, but this place is quickly rising to one of our favorite stops in India.

We ordered #5 - it was delicious but nothing like what was advertised!

Being a touristy town, there are many wares to buy.  Here is a knife stand selling a knife sheathed in an Eiffel Tower. Jeff quickly dubbed it Kneiffel Tower.