After a couple of days checking out the pink capital Jaipur, we hopped on a tourist bus bound for Pushkar. The bus station in Jaipur isn’t very big, but we were directed to “Platform 1″ by the information office, which had about a dozen buses idling there. Fortunately as the time for departure drew near, it became immediately obvious which bus was bound for Puskhar: the one with all the people who looked like us standing by it.

In Nepal a “Tourist Bus” is often a nicer than average bus taken primarily by locals not wanting to take the local bus. Almost every time we took a “Tourist Bus” anywhere in Nepal, we were the only tourists on it. The same cannot be said of our tourist bus from Jaipur to Puskhar: all tourists, with the exception of two Indian women, one of which I think was a nun.

The fact that so many people were on the same bus heading to the same (small) place made us think two things: Pushkar must be nice, but it must be pretty touristy as well.

Arriving there resulted in the usual dealings: hotel touts trying to take us to their place. One particularly persistent guy even went so far as to tell us off when we refused to look at his place. We have a pretty general policy of not going to hotels with touts hanging out at bus stations and on the street. Even if they don’t get a commission, they always try to pressure you into staying once you get there. They’re pretty sure if they let you walk out, you won’t come back. It’s always best to look around at a few places and decide that way anyway. This guy didn’t like that, and the conversation went something like this.

“So that place you try is full, Will you look at my place now?” (very loud and pushy)

“No, we’re going to go this way.”

“Is it because it’s not in the LP [Lonely Planet]? Do you only follow the LP?”

“No, we just don’t like to talk to people we meet in the streets about hotels.”

“Oh!” (very angry now) “Better you not come to India then, my friend! Better you stay home!”

He was obviously a jerk not worth dealing with, so I let him have the last word. He’s not going to get guests in his hotel acting like that, nor will he get himself listed in the “LP.”

Eventually we found a really nice place with a fantastic balcony overlooking the city, with a view of the lake.

Pushkar is a small, pretty city on a holy lake that attracts pilgrims, tourists, and hippies. The hippy imprint is probably the largest on the town, and most of the foreign tourists wandering around look like hippies. Despite the fact that our current lifestyle and the fact that we only have three changes of clothes might lead some people at home to think that we’re hippies, we felt out of place with our fake North Face fleeces and khaki trousers. What a change from just a month ago, when we were dressed like everyone else in Kathmandu.

Despite the high concentration of barefoot or strangely dressed fellow travelers, Pushkar was a really nice place to spend a few days. There’s no meat, eggs, or alcohol allowed in town. Unfortunately there weren’t too many imaginative vegetarian restaurants around, but we found one place called Honey-N-Spice that had some great food.

There are hundreds of creamy temples dotting the city, and there are numerous ghats around the lake for ritual bathing. Hanging out by the main ghat watching the sunset accompanied by banging drums, dancing hippies, actual Hindu pilgrims and the odd wandering cow was a neat experience.

The last night there we had a big thunderstorm that dropped some hail on the city. The rain and then the hail made the locals pretty happy. Apparently it hadn’t hailed in ten years.

We spent four nights there, and that was enough for us. Some people spend weeks there; it’s not hard to see why. We decided to take a bus to Bundi, another small and peaceful town that doesn’t see too many visitors.