Jaipur and Pushkar

by Berit

City Palace of Jaipur

Vincent in the City Palace

Life in the streets of Jaipur

Making of the famous Indian textiles

Hawa Mahal, Jaipur

Relaxing days in Pushkar

India, a country full of colors!

And a country full of colorful people.

In the streets of Pushkar. Women of all ages often wear a lot of jewellery. 

The holy lake and the ghats in Pushkar.

Fruit market

View of Pushkar from the nearby hill. Rajasthan is a very dry region. From above, Pushkar with its lake looks like a small oasis in the big desert.

After busy days in Delhi and Agra we were longing to get away from the big city life and see more of the "spiritual" India. So we headed towards the holy city Pushkar. On the way we did a stop in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan (the state in India were we would be traveling the next weeks). We didn't plan on staying long, as it is another big and busy city. But when we arrived late one night the rickshaw driver taking us to our hotel, took us to a very peaceful neighborhood with empty streets. So we reached to the only logical conclusion: we are being kidnapped! Of course this turned out to be not completely true. It was simply a peaceful neighborhood... A bit paranoid one may think. But well, it was the first time we had seen an empty street in India, no wonder we were worried.

We spent a nice day in Jaipur, visiting among others the City Palace and the funny looking Hawa Mahal (see picture) and wandering in the bazaars. Again we were overwhelmed by life of the bazaars, all the things they sell, the smells, colors, sounds...

The next day we went on to Pushkar. Inside the city it is a holy lake surrounded by bathing ghats. Hindu pilgrims come here to take a bath in the sacred water. The "spirituality" of the city was a bit hidden behind touristy shops and fake priests tricking people to do some kind of ceremony by the lake and then charge for it (yes, we did it...). But it was still a nice little city were we spent a few relaxing days. Specially nice was a walk to a temple on top of a hill, with monkeys jumping around and a good view of the city and the lake.