A beautiful sunset at Pushkar, Rajasthan

In January 2019, me and my cousin went on a backpack trip that covered Chandigarh, Himachal, Delhi, and Rajasthan.when we started that trip we only had two tickets Chandigarh. No plans at all. At the end of the trip, somehow we ended up in Rajasthan. Our first stop in Rajasthan was Ajmer. After visiting the Khaja Moinuddin dargah, we decided to go to Pushkar. In my mind Rajasthan is all about deserts, camels, and forts. And when we were in Ajmer It didn’t change my mindset.

My cousin said, some of his friends are there, they are part of a hippie style band and I thought it will be fun. At that night in Ajmer, I googled about that place. It’s a holy place, there are more than 100 temples in that area and there a big lake. The Pushkar Camel festival is famous. I looked at my cousin with a curious face, ‘what is this guy thinking??’. I asked him that and he said its a nice place.

Morning after visiting dargah,we left our hotel and waited at the bus stand. Typical unhygienic building with a lot of tobacco stains on the walls and running people. A foreigner was rolling a joint next to us and smiled. He is also going to Pushkar.

After 20 mins, the bus came. But the fun part was no one was getting into the bus, everyone is throwing towels, books, and bags to seats through the window. I got in and managed to get a seat(A fight just missed in between that). The bus started and left the stand. Its 15km from Ajmer to Pushkar. The bus was awesome, people were hanging on the door, sitting on top of the bus. Coolies, babas, priests, travelers all are on the bus. The route was amazing, many peacocks, monkeys all the way. After 45 mins we reached Pushkar. At first I saw a street,4 shops,2 camels and some people sitting under a tree. ‘Oh s**t' was the first word that came to my mind. But my cousin was happy, we walked through the street at the end of the street there is a turn and after the turn, it was like a dream.

There were a lot of people, a big street market, shops, food from different countries, cafes, artists. I looked back at the street we came in and looked again. The place was out of this world. We walked through the market to meet his friends. The local people are wearing colorful Rajasthani headwear and women are in sarees. The foreigners were covered in tattoos, piercings and dreadlocks hairstyle. All wandering as free birds. It was a bang on my head. We met the band and went to the hostel. A guy named suri runs the hostel, Cool guy.

Later we went out to have food with a band. I tried many local dishes and sweets. In the evening one of the guys said let’s go to the top of a hill. We packed all the instruments and started climbing the hill. We were tired when we reached the top, we sat there looking at the breathtaking beauty of that town. The people started a fire and started heating the bongos. One guy had a mandolin and he sings in another level, all original songs by them. As the singing went on, a girl came and sat next to us. She’s from Germany. He was singing in Malayalam and she was enjoying that. Later another group came from the top joined us. They were all from different countries, but the music made them unite, we immersed in the music as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.

For me, that was one of the best nights of my life. If anyone planning for a backpacking trip, this is a must-visit place.