Pushkar is one of the holiest cities in India with no alcohol or tobacco or naughty things like that allowed within its boundaries. It is full of temples including one of the world's few Brahma temples but a lot of them are for locals only with foreigners strictly confined to walking round the outside.
Our guide took us round and showed us through the extensive markets (which were extremely tempting but I managed to resist!) ending with a trip to the holy lake. It was here that we met the very affable priest who proceeded to take us down to the lake with a tray of holy items (rice, paint, string, flowers and a coconut) and bless us. The blessing consisted of him chanting in Indian and us having to copy what he was saying which was extremely difficult with absolute no grasp of the language and pretty comical. He then sprinkled us with water, put some of the paint on our head then stuck some rice on it, wrapped the string round our wrists and made us hold the coconut whilst making a wish. Finally we had to throw a flower in the water to make our wish come true and tada! We were blessed... well not quite. There was of course the matter of payment for the priests services and the gods blessing. How much would we like to give? Remember that there are 3 main gods! Ermm 100 rupees? That is not enough, it will not please the gods! Why not give 500 for each god? We ended up getting away with paying 500 each which we thought was a massive rip off but compared to our friend Martin we got away lightly.
He visited on his own and when he tried to refuse payment the priest started screaming and in a second he was surrounded. He had promised the gods 1500 rupees apparently but only had 500, they followed him all the way back to what he pretended to be his hotel where he laid low for a few hours before creeping back to his actual room. Scary mad priests and it's still to be seen if our wishes will come true...
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