So after ambling around Jodhpur not taking photographs I boarded my next train to Ajmer. This is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims but it was not my destination.
My destination was not where I came to the next morning. I woke up after a very good night's sleep on the train. It was not moving. I looked out of the window and could see a lot of railway tracks. Everything was very quiet. It was 6.30am. I walked out into the corridor. There was no-one else in the carriage. I looked out of the window on that side and could see that we were in Ajmer.
My train had arrived while I was sleeping. My carriage had been detached from the rest of the train and had been shunted into a parked position in the middle of a lot of railway tracks. It would be nice to think that the staff knew that I wanted to go to Ajmer and that they didn't want to disturb my slumber and gently detached my carriage, moving it out of the way; before the moving off slowly and quietly to carry on their journey. How very considerate that would have been. Perhaps it often happens that tourists don't wake up in time for their stop. Perhaps they always let them sleep in and wake up in their own time for a joke.
The lucky thing was that the carriage I was in was clearly only going as far as Ajmer. The rest of the train was long gone.
In a film my situation would probably be illustrated by a shot of me looking befuddled and bewidered out of the window. The camera would then pan out horizontally to show me at the window of a lone carriage not attached to a train at either end and then swing up to reveal the carriage in the middle of all these different tracks with the platform some 30 yards away.
This was not really very good. I had to get off the train, I mean carriage, quick. I still had all my stuff so I hadn't been robbed in my sleep, which reassured me. I could have been left to sleep while the thieves made their getaway and the alarm would not have been raised until I woke by which time the trail would have gone cold. It hadn't happened. So that was something.
Trains are much bigger than they look. I mean they stand quite high off the ground. When they pull into a station their doors are aligned with the platforms. It is a short step down to get off. When the platform is 30 yards away from the platform edge is a great deal more difficult to "alight". There is a drop from the doors of several feet. I did manage to drop to the ground and then pick my way across the various lines (keeping an eye out for any trains that might be approaching from any direction). When I got nearer the platform the opposite problem arose. How was I going to clamber up onto it with my backpack, my smaller "day pack', the camera parafernalia and whatever else I was carrying away from Jaisalmer?
I can't quite remember how that problem was overcome. I think one of the station staff caught sight of me and directed me to where I could get up to the platform. I felt a little bit silly but there was nothing that could be done to avoid it.
My destination was Pushkar and I managed to establish that there was transport up there at 7.00am. It was very lucky I hadn't slumbered longer. The transport was a van. I don't recall what it looked like from the outside but I am assuming that it must have been a retro-style van based on an Austin Morris van from the 50's or 60's. from the inside it was difficult to see anything because I was not the only passenger.
The van didn't leave exactly at 7.00am. It wasn't quite overfull enough. It did set off soon after and the short 11km journey followed. I couldn't see where we were going. It was a bumpy old ride. It seemed like quite a bit of it was up hill. We might have climbed over Snake Mountain.
It took about 25 minutes to get to Pushkar and as soon as the van stopped and I got off I was being ushered to a guest house. The Sai Baba Guest House to be precise. This was all arranged for me without my informed consent. I was just swept along by the tout. I really didn't care.
The Guest House looked OK. It fronted a narrow street and my memory is telling me that my room was across a courtyard once you went in. I could be wrong about this. It was a cool sort of place. My room had a kind of porch. The door of the room was set back so it didn't open straight onto the courtyard (if there was a courtyard, I'm still not sure I am remembering this right).
I have had to resort to checking my own facts and am pleased to say that the Sai Baba Guest House does indeed have an inner garden. It is still there. Reviews say that it is "cool and cheap", has a good atmosphere and is presently run by an Indian/French family. They have entertainment for their guests now and there's a rooftop restaurant which I don't remember being there at the time. I don't know whether management was the same when I was there. I suspect not.
The person I met was a young guy who told me he was a son of the owner. He disclosed that he used to be a Brahmin monk but had cut the string and decided against becoming a priest. He led me to my room.
Right outside the room there was a sign. I wish I had taken a photograph of it the moment I saw it. I didn't and then it slipped my mind to document it photographically. The sign was a list of all the things that were not allowed at the shore of the holy lake. I think I might have transcribed the sign into a letter I sent home to my mates, Steve and Debbie but I don't have the letters. I might ask for them. I'll come back to this later.
So what about Pushkar? In the first place I was late. One of the reasons people visit is the Camel Fair held in the month of the Indian calendar that straddles October and November. Never mind, you can't always be in the right place at the right time.
There's more to Pushkar than the Camel Fair. It is one of the holiest places in India. I do recall this from the Lonely Planet Guide and the Insight Guide (wherever they may be now) but I have refreshed my memory. The small town is built on the shores of a lake. The lake is one of three lakes that sprang into existence when Brahma (the Creator) threw down a lotus flower. The name of the area comes from the words "Pushpa" which means flower and "Kar" which means hand. The largest lake that resulted from the water that immediately sprang from the ground is Senior Pushkar.
There are 400 temples in the town which include a rare temple dedicated to Brahma. There is absolutely no escaping the spirituality of the place. Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were scattered over the water from one of the 52 Ghats. It was my intention to see the Lake.
I read the sign outside my room listing all the various things that were not allowed near the lake. The last thing on the list was the injunction "No Drugs". I went into the room, put the backpack down and tuned my radio to listen to the BBC World Service News on the hour at 8.00am. I took out what I didn't need from my Day Pack and made to go for a wander around.
When I opened the door, however, I found the young former Brahmin monk and a friend of his had drawn up some chairs into the recessed doorway. The ex-monk was in the process of preparing a chillum pipe. It was very early in the morning but what can you do? I was invited to sit down and join them. I did feel it necessary to draw the young man's attention to the sign above his head which read "No Drugs". He didn't get it. I pointed to the sign and the chillum, the things could not be reconciled. He said: "Drugs? No Baba! This is not Drugs. This is Parvati Chars from Himanchal Pradesh. This is not Drugs!". So that was alright then.
The young man was a seasoned professional. The pipe was lit up and it came to me. There was no way that I going to be considered any kind of lightweight. I cupped my hands and took a long draught deep into my lungs, held it briefly and exhaled through my nose and took another huge puff. I swear that it was the nearest I will have ever got to resembling one of those Rastafarians you see smoking a chalice on Reggae album covers. I did not cough or splutter.
While I was doing that the young man was congratulating me on my good fortune at having arrived in Pushkar on Brahma's day. He insisted that I would want to make puja at the lakeside and as luck would have it he was the best person I could have met to make sure that my attention was drawn to everything important and that I did not miss anything.
The pipe was finished and the young guy then cadged a cigarette which he carefully emptied of its tobacco. He then rubbed a healthy chunk of hashish into the tobacco and then returned the fortified mixture back into the paper tube packing it gently. The hubris of my demonstration that a chillum at 8.05am was as nothing to me was beginning to come home to me. I was very high indeed. I suggested to the ex-monk that he needn't light up the cocktail cheroot straight away and was glad to learn that he wasn't going to.
No, we were off to the lake! Right away.
[to be continued]
