PUSHKAR - AJMER FEBRUARY 9

I am having an early stroll (before 9 am) through the city .and by the lake to enjoy it when it is still quiet. The light is beautiful at this time.....Then, I join Christine on the roof top terrace of the hotel for breakfast....enjoying the nice views over the lake...looking at the monkeys jumping from wall to wall, the cows by the lake, the flocks of pigeons..Then another stroll in the city, still so much street life..............peeping inside the Hindu temple, with so many decorations. For non-Hindus, it is not allowed to go past the front gate.

Short after 12, we all meet Jassi in front of the Sikh temple, so that we visit it all together. Jassi is Sikh and he is proud to show us this temple. The white building is impressive.

Then we drive to Ajmer, 14 km away, where we first visit the Nasiyan Temple Museum, built in 1865. The corridors and ceilings are very colourful.....It is also known as the Golden Temple, due to its amazing and unique display. The main hall over two storeys is beautiful with gold and silver decorations... It is huge and one can see the display from many glass doors and windows all around the hall.

Then we drive to the Taragarh hill, up to the fort, up a winding road. We get great views from the top, mountains, the Aravalli Ranges, the Anasagar Lake, north of Ajmer. The village hosts mosques and seems to be a pilgrimage place for muslims..It has a few pretty colourful houses and also seems to be partly under reconstruction. We can view a bunch of workers, men and women, busy renovating a house. We make very friendly encounters there, but people are quite shy..I don't think that so many foreign tourists come here.

We have to enter Ajmer again to drive back to Pushkar,. There, we have to pay a passenger tax to enter the city. It was the same when we entered Pushkar.We stop at a wedding procession with women wearing such colorful saris.

After another stroll in the city, ..we can view a great sunset over the lake…..

We have dinner at the Sai Baba Restaurant, where there is an all-you-can-eat buffet and Gypsy dancing. We have mixed feelings about it, it is aimed at tourists only and on the other way, it is a way of earning money for them..

Beautiful smiles!!!