Pushkar---The Rest of the Story

As I have mentioned, riding in a camel cart is a lot of fun.  It's not comfortable, mind you, and you do a lot of lurching, but it is fun.

Everywhere we went at the Pushkar Fair, we were surrounded by vendors.  These ladies were trying to sell Nonie mehndi (henna for her hands) and bracelets made of camel bone and puppets and anything else they might have had.  The male vendors mostly seemed to have books on Pushkar, camel bone bangles, marionettes, chess sets (also made of camel bone and wood) and postcards.

And there were wandering musicians....

....and ladies shopping for foodstuffs, vegetables and a bobble or two.

These brightly colored rings are for putting on your head.  You use them to keep the big pot you place onto the rings in place while you carry it around.  Usually the metal pots contain water.

There were stall selling vermilion for making the tika (the forehead dot sported by Indian women) and for coloring the center part of the hair (a mark of a married lady, as is the tika).  Some of the vermilion powder was sparkly with the addition of glitter.  I'd never seen that before.

The cubes seen above are a sort of Indian sweet.  Our guide Ritu told us all about this one and I, of course, don't remember what she said.  I believe it is made of cane sugar and....uh....something else.  I do remember that Ritu thought it quite fine.  We, naturally, were not allowed to try it.  (Ritu was very protective of our touchy stomachs and would only let us eat and drink where she knew it would not offend our delicate Western systems.  I don't believe any of us had any intestinal trouble on the whole trip.  She knew of what she spoke!

It was a very festive time at the fair, and many women were out, shopping and looking, eating snacks and having a fine time.

And then we ran into the gentlemen who had been the finalists in the Best mustaches and beard in Rajasthan contest!  Really!

That's Ritu, our amazing guide, on the left.  Isn't she pretty?

 The gentleman on the very right was the winner, but I must say, the fellow in the left was quite a dandy and very proud of his spectacular beard and mustaches.  All three were quite amazing!

Pushkar Camel Fair

It was maybe 20 years ago that I read something about the Pushkar Camel Fair.  It wasn't a long article, but it mentioned it was in Rajasthan and that many, many camels were traded and that there were camel races and it was held once a year.  All this I remember from that little article all those years ago.  When I saw that my alumni association was offering a trip to India to go to the Pushkar Camel Fair, I could hardly wait to sign up. 

It just sounded so exotic.  It sounded so unusual.  It sounded just exactly like the kind of thing I most like to see.

And it was.

We rode around on camel carts, gawking and gaping and trying to take it all in, that first afternoon at the fair.  It was everything I thought it would be, from dusty and hot to exotic and amazing and colorful.

In many regards it is not that different from a good old American state fair.  You have animals.  You  have large crowds.  You have vendors selling the latest geegaw.  You have fair food booths.  There are children running wild everywhere.  It's colorful, noisy, smelly, exciting and really, really fun.  You could say that the Pushkar Fair is a sort of second cousin to the Western Washington State Fair, the one I am most familiar with.

Many animals are traded at the Pushkar Fair.  Horses and camels.  Mostly camels.  If it's been a good year and the harvest was good, many people come and bring big herds of camels to sell or trade.  They have a little extra money from the good harvest and off to the fair they go.  And this year, o lucky me, it was an excellent harvest!

What was different was that mostly the fair attendees were men.  I don't mean that there weren't women there, there certainly were, but the men greatly out numbered the women.  The men tended to sit around in groups, drinking tea and talking camels.  (I am guessing they were talking camel, or maybe horses, and whatever else Rajasthani men discuss over a cup of milk tea in the afternoon.)

A few thought it a good idea to catch a nap before darkness fell and all the nighttime festivities started.  (Whatever they were....I wasn't there at night so I don't know.)

There were a surprising number of tourists there, too, and most of us were riding around on the camel carts.  The carts were pretty nice, too.  They had canopies and cushions and some had side walls and most were decorated to make them festive and desirable to hire.  Some of the camels, too, were all decked out in camel finery.  Some had ankle bracelets of many, many bells.  There were brightly colored halters and netting that was thrown over the backs of the camels.  Some had tassels and tinsel and all manner of decorations.  And then there were camels with patterns cut into their fur.  And designs painted on.  Camels in India get to get gussied up!

You could buy camel food, and grain and whatever you might need to take care of your livestock.  

Even the trucks were decorated!

There was this one truck that passed my camel cart by full of beautiful young ladies, all decked out in their most festive saris and shawls.  They, too, were having a great time at the Fair.

This fellow took a break in his cart to read in the late afternoon.

The sun started to set and the sky was amazing.  Fires were being lit all over the grounds as people began to cook their evening meal and make more tea, and to have a nice campfire to sit around and chat and sing and tell stories.  I'm guessing about that, but that's what I would have been doing, had I been able to stay all night long.

The only way my tour guide was able to drag me away from the Fair was the promise that I was going to be able to return the next day.  Stay tuned.  There's more!

Rajasthan and the Pushkar Camel Fair

Photo from http://210.212.96.134/searajasthan/

I am off to India tomorrow.  This is a long dreamt of trip and I am very, very excited.  Nonie and I won't be home until mid-December.  While we are away we'll be visiting Delhi, the Pushkar Camel Fair,   the Taj Mahal, Jaipur and Ranthambore National Park, among other places.

I have completed my Christmas gift buying, wrapping and posting.  I've made, addressed and stamped my Christmas cards so I can come home and just pop them in the mail.  I have finished and delivered my newest grandchild's Christmas stocking.  In other words, I have actually gotten all my big Christmas chores finished so I can go off to exotic India and not have to think about what I should be home doing because---I've done it!

That, Dear Readers, is a first.

I won't be posting while away, so please come back in December for some new photos and tales from our sojourn to India, and a very short visit to Nepal....