At 630am Jane and I heard children singing, threw on our shoes, and went to check it out. It turned out to be a garbage truck blasting music. We continued to walk down to the lake where we found four women dressed nicely dumping lake water on their head. First we had to climb the stairs and take off our shoes, then we joined them. They were insistent on dumping the holy water on our heads; we declined many many times. Thankfully, they were still content to let us follow them. They were blessing themselves 51 times around the lake at all the holy temples. A ritual done once a month. As "holy" men tried desperately to sell us ritual flowers, we stuck with our golden rule - follow the women. It was wonderful.
Fun fact: The lake in Pushkar was printed on coins in the 4th century BC. Digest that!! It is the home of the God Brahma.
At 830am we took a tuk tuk to the cable car where we had a view of the city and the surrounding farms and hills. We saw numerous monkeys and camels. In the pictures, you can see a baby suckling milk from her mother.
Currently, it is 11:30am and time for the afternoon siesta. At 3 or 4 we will emerge from our room showered, rested, and hopefully having played several games of Gin Rummy. Last night we ate dinner at 830pm when it was cooler. It was 93 degrees yesterday. Great weather according to the hotel manager.
Other stuff:
1. The weather is interesting. In Nepal the monsoon was just starting. The roads were still passable and mountains viewable. In India the high heat (45C) broke days before we arrived. Starting in July, the rains start and cool parts of India off including Rajastan. Originally we were going to try to make it to Darmashala, but the Indian monsoons in the mountains are known to be even worse than the Napelese monsoons, so we decided to stay south, seeing as though its not as hot as it could be and there's already flooding in Rishikesh. It has still only rained during waking hours once... soooo far
2. The silver lining of monsoon season is that it is also MANGO SEASON! We eat piles of mangos everyday. My Dad used to tell me the mangos in the US weren't mangos. He would say, "You can drink mangos." I have always wondered what he meant ... until now. Ripping a tiny hole near the top of the mango and smoshing it around while you suck through the hole, one can devour an entire mango in minutes. At the end, there is the seed, a flat disc about 2/3rds the height of the mango, rattling around in the skin.
3. We arrived at the Delhi airport on Friday. On Friday, the airport roof collapsed killing 1 and injuring 8. it collapsed in Terminal 1 and we were in Terminal 3. Menesh called to make sure we were ok.
4. The holy cows of Pushkar eat garbage and are everywhere. According to the Restaurant Manager at our Hotel, the Indian Government wants to modernize Pushkar as they did Varanassi! What!? Varanassi was amazing 20 years ago. We were told Modi made Varanassi a Political location and it has changed significantly. Sad. In order to modernize, they banned cows from parts of Varanassi.
5. India won the Cricket World Cup 2 days ago! There wasn't much fanfare here in Pushkar, but we had a very happy hotel manager and kids playing cricket in the street.
6. Last and certainly least, delhi belly has set in. We are on the look out for anything dangerous, and are so far doing well enough to prevent the need for our piles of antibiotics. We also celebrate hard stools. We had a celebration yesterday and today! During my Dad's time here, the Peace Corps volunteers used to get together from different parts of the country to celebrate hard stools.
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