Today we leave Jaipur for the small town of Pushkar. We woke up and asked our hostel reception where a good place to have breakfast would be. They directed us to a local cafe and we set off eager to fill our bellys. Outside our local friend who we had been speaking to yesterday was waiting in his 'helicopter' (tuktuk). He drove us the few blocks to our cafe. Once we were there we accidentally walked into the adjacent restaurant. Which turned out to be a chineese place.
A little strange having Chinese I do admit. But we do miss the Chinese food so we ordered some dim sims and delicious tofu dishes. Once we were finished we headed back with our new friend and having already packed that morning we decided to hang out in the common room and rest a while before heading to the bus stand. Around 3pm we dragged ourselves off the airconditioned couches. Shouldered our packs and walked the 500m to the Sindi Camp bus stand, receiving the usual 100 offers for a tuktuk ride along the way.
Whilst walking I got talking to a local guy who asked where we were from and where we were going. He offered to help us find the correct bus, eventually waiving one down that was just leaving. We quickly thanked him and jumped aboard. Paying 500 rupee for our ticket. A little more than expected but the bus turned out to take us all the way to Pushkar without having to change over at Ajmer as expected. Once aboard the bus conductor was quick to move everyone around so we could sit uo the front.
We would have been happy to sit anywhere and felt really awkward when he moved people for us to sit. Trying to explain we were happy to sit up the back did'nt work and he couldnt understand. So we just followed his direction. I will never fully understand how these systems work! Seems like a massive fuss just because we are western. Or perhaps we paid a premium which would'nt surprise me! The journey was only about 3.5 hours so nothing too crazy. Dispite not being an a/c bus it was dry enough that it wasn't too uncomfortable. We passed the time by reading and watching tv. We arrived around 6.30pm and it was still bright outside. After getting off the bus we headed to the back to collect our bags. Tuktuk drivers buzzing around us to try and get a fare. A guy from the bus opened the back and then allowed us to get our heavey bags without any assistance. He then turned to us and tried to extort 50 rupee from us for the privilege of stowing our bags.
This is a pretty common scam. And after I got pretty mad and argued with him. He 'checked our ticket' and backed out of the confrontation. It truly is a daily battle not to get ripped off in this country. Constantly having to feign disgust at the prices and services being offered in order to get the standard rate and not the 'western price'. We decided to walk to the hostel. It was less than 1km and we have legs so we might as well use them.
We soon arrived and were greeted into a small communal area for some local apartments. We were shown to our dorm which was a seperate room off the common area that was fitted with lockers and bunks. Already starving and dying of thirst we dropped our bags and headed straight out to a pizza place a couple of doors down. Ordering 2 large pizzas and a mango milkshake and a ginger beer (homemade). There was some confusion with our order and we ended up scoffing someone else's pizza, turned out to be cheaper than what we ordered and was pretty tasty so no harm done! The manager only asked us to pay for what we had eaten and didnt seem worried. He probably ate the spare one himself! By now it was almost 9pm and we returned home to bed. Allisha had still not been feeling great so we turned in for an early night.
Tom
Tom
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