JAIPUR + PUSKAR, RAJASTHAN | LETTERS & PICTURES FROM ASIA, 1988 | PART 14

In 1988, when I was eighteen years old I set off from New Zealand to Asia on an adventure. This is the fourteenth letter home, sent following a return to Delhi, Jaipur and then Pushkar.

• Read the very first letter from Kathmandu here.
• Read the previous letter from the Alchi and Ladakh here.

Delhi
25 July 1988

Dear Everyone,

I just talked to Eunice, Sue and Eve on the telephone and was so happy to hear from you that I decided to write straight away. I also had a total of eleven letters when I arrived here in Delhi and that was also really excellent.

It is monsoon here at the moment. It's very humid, although the temperature is usually onIy in the mid-thirties which is cool compared with how it was before. It usually just pours down a few times per day, which is nice and cool to walk in, and then it is overcast and feels like it is going to rain the rest of the time.

I have been in Delhi for the past few days. I tried twice to phone home, waiting for four hours the first time and two the second. You learn to wait! The first time it seemed that your phone was engaged for the whole time from 9pm until 1am NZ time. I think that it must have been the bad Indian telephone exchange. 

The trip down here was a complicated adventure. The bus from Srinagar to Jammu, where I was to catch the train, was delayed seven hours so we missed our connection. Instead of arriving in Jammu at 6pm we arrived at 1am. Our train had left at 8pm. There were six of us; we found somewhere to sleep and the next morning went on the wild ticket chase. The tourist officer sent us to the ticket collector who sent us to the station master who told us all the trains were full and sent us to the booking office, where there was the typical Indian crush. Queues don't exist; you just fight and push. The booking officer didn't know what was happening and so told us to go to the tourist officer. After all this, several hours later, all we had gained was a note signed by the tourist officer explaining our situation, but no tickets. We decided to just climb on to the unreserved third class or unreserved second and show the conductor our tickets and the note.When the train pulled in all the unreserved compartments were impossibly full; we couldn't even get in the door. We were all so frustrated that we climbed in to the reserved second class anyway. Throughout the trip the conductor, a large self-important man, kept trying to boot us off the train, but we all refused. He even brought the police on, but they might have been afraid of the consequences that might affect them if they upset these already irate tourists, so they left. 

We all had to sleep sitting in the corridor leading to the toilet, although I hardly got any with the lights being on, the stench of urine and people stumbling over us to go to the toilet all the time.

We arrived in Delhi at 6am. now the 27th July and tomorrow I go to Jaipur in Rajasthan. I will spend some time in Rajasthan, then lie on the beach in Goa, although it is not the best time of year. I'll spend some more time in the south and be back in Delhi before the 22 August, which is when the bus leaves for Pakistan. This is in an army convoy that goes three times per month, on the 2nd, 12th and 22nd. I might actually fly to Lahore. I'll get my Chinese visa in Islamabad, then fly to Skardu in Baltistan and spend a few weeks in the north of Pakistan. From there I will cross the border into China, three days by bus to Kashgar in Xinjiang.

Anyway, I must hurry as the post office will close soon. I got a visa extension yesterday. What a major bureaucratic operation that was! It took nearly all day. Many people trying to extend their visas lost their tempers, which slows and complicates things even more.

Indian officials like to stick to the rules and you always have to fill in hundreds of forms that then have to signed by someone important, that then have to be stamped and so on - if you can't take a deep breath and relax through it all you go crazy. I got my photos developed and I'm quite pleased with some of them. Some aren't so good as I have a bad habit of cutting peoples' feet off- never mind.
I had a big fancy lunch in a nice restaurant with an Australian guy I'm sharing a room with. It was an all-you-can-eat salad bar. I had four plates!

Pushkar
31 July 1988

Dear Everyone,

I'm now in Pushkar, which really feels like the centre of India. It is one of the holy cities and it certainly has a special feeling about it. It is built around a small lake with ghats all around it; pilgrims bathe in the water every day amongst the turtles and fish. All the buildings are whitewashed stone with many turrets, balconies and spires; it looks exactly the way that you imagine India to be. It is very beautiful and the air is cool due to the lake. The surrounding landscape is desert dunes sprinkled with clumps of low-lying trees; in fact it is on the edge of the Thar Desert.

My hotel hangs right out over the lake so I can sit on the balcony and watch all the goings-on for hours. Sunsets here are great. In some ways this feels more holy than Varanasi because there is less casualness; you are not allowed to take photographs or eat meat in Pushkar.

The night before last was Guru Purnuna and full moon so there were lots of festivities and a big street procession, or as big as the narrow street would allow. There was a great brass band with an Indian drum section, sort of half Indian, half big-band music; it was funny to see all the Indian musicians dressed up in suits. Following that were lots of men doing circular stick dances with much leaping about. Then there was some important guru, who he was I don't know, sitting high up on a trolley covered in flowers. Next came a group of white-robed men reading prayers aloud from little books. Behind that there was a huge picture of Brahma being wheeled along on another trolley, followed by a large group of women singing something completely unrelated. Finally there was a generator being pushed along, giving power to all the guys holding lights alongside the procession.

As you can imagine, it was absolute chaos and a total cacophony of noise, but it was good fun. I slept on the roof that night and all night there was the sounds of bells, prayers, peacocks and the brass band.

Yesterday I climbed a hill with a temple on top, which had a great view over Pushkar and out over the desert; it looked like how North Africa might look.

When we first arrived in Pushkar we were told we must go to the lake and do puja. This involved various rituals with rice, coconuts, the different coloured powders, and water. Also part of it was wishing all your family good health and luck, so if you are healthy and lucky you will know why!

This is a town where you can easily relax and do nothing for weeks, but I must move along soon.

Before coming here I was in Jaipur, the biggest city in Rajasthan. I actually found it not very interesting although it is supposed to be a big tourist attraction. It had a few nice palaces and things that I went to see, but basically it is just an ordinary noisy, crowded and dirty city.

Tomorrow I will be going to Jaisalmer which is supposed to be a really interesting desert oasis near the Pakistan border. You can go on camel safaris into the desert.

The monkeys are a problem here as they climb into the rooms and steal things at night. The girl next door had all her bananas eaten by them. They do what they like. There are also lots of parrots and peacocks around.

I'm sitting on the balcony and it is beginning to get hot. The lake is quite muddy but I think that it is fairly clean, so I might go for a swim. I hope the eels, fish and turtles don't bite!

I'm thinking that I might pop across to Sri Lanka but I'm not sure if I can afford it or if I have time, because I can't leave it too late to cross the pass into China because of snow.

Below is a video of re-visiting Jaipur in 2020