The Pushkar Camel Fair takes place every November over the Kartik Purnima Full moon in the town of Pushkar which is just outside of Ajmer city Rajasthan. It is attended by 300,000 plus. The attendees are; camel owners and traders, Rajasthani farmers, devout Hindus making pilgrimage to the Pushkar Lake and Brahmin temple (the only one of it’s kind in the world), real life Indian carneys, Indians from all over the sub-continent selling their wares and massive amounts of tourists from all corners of the world with their huge digital SLRs. And don’t forget the 20,000 plus camels, horses, cows and other livestock. My girlfriend Sheeva and I attended the fair in 2012 and it was awesome.
Getting to Pushkar is so easy. Ajmer is the fifth biggest city in Rajasthan and it’s train station sits right in the middle of many popular destinations in Rajasthan eg. Jaipur, Udaipur, Johdpur and Ranthmbhor. Get to Ajmer by India Rail second-class fan, you will learn the most in this setting, be safe and pay a ridiculously cheap price to get anywhere. Make sure you are specific when you buy your train ticket and demand the top bunk. If you don’t get it, one can usually just set up on the top bunk anyways and most Indians will be cool with it. The main reasons to take the top bunk are; you can sleep and stretch out at all times and that the annoying aspects of India Rail; beggars, wallahs and overly inquisitive Indians are easily avoided on the top bunk. Ajmer is about 18hours from Mumbai.
Ajmer seems to most foreigners to be just another India city where they have to change trains and this doesn’t miss the mark by much. It does have a very holy Muslim Durga with beautiful gardens, however unless one is very interested in seeing this Durga the only thing it serves to do it draw millions of pilgrims to Ajmer that overload the India Rail. Pushkar is the place to be. The best thing we did in Ajmer was drive in, go to a high class wedding with our guest house owner and drive on out.
From the train station it is a 50 rupee ride with a brother to the bus station for Pushkar or you can walk if you’re feeling it, it’s about 20 minutes walk. During festival time the busses are coming and going from Pushkar to Ajmer constantly and it is only a 14 rupee ride. It is 11kms from Ajmer to Pushkar through a narrow and winding mountain pass. It can be a little bit hairy on some of the corners. Best to just close your eyes.
From the Pushkar bus stop just walk it! There will be so many brothers trying to get you to go every which way. Pushkar is so small so depending on the time of day just get someone to point you in the direction of the lake and walk the five minutes there and it will all become clear. If you want to stay right in the middle of the action you’ll be right there once you get to the lake if you want to find a quieter place to stay walk until it starts to get quieter. If you don’t know where you want to be or don’t really care try Hotel Kanhaia Haveli. I stayed there on this trip and two years earlier (2010) and built an amazing relationship with the owner and his family during which him, his wife, a Baba and I travelled with no notice (I was the instigator of the action) to the Maha Khumba Mela at Haridwar which saw 10 million people bathe in the Ganges on April 14th with yours truly, but that is another story.
Their hotel is clean, fairly affordable, they had heaps of rooms during the festival (booking ahead is not something one needs to do for the Pushkar Camel Fair) and if you hassel Satish (the owner) enough you can have hot water within ten minutes. This did get quite annoying. It has the highest rooftop in all of Pushkar as well with an awesome restaurant on top run by my heartly friend Dolath. He cooks amazing food in a very simple kitchen, speaks amazing English and when he’s not working his ass off is up for a jaunt around town to the festival or to his families home for chai. He’s a real country Indian and has countless amazing stories and legends to tell.
We arrived with a friend we had met on the train (an Argentinian woman, a doctor) at about 16:00 on the second day of the festival and were warmly greeted and settled in. What luck it was that we showed up with a Doctor, Dolath had burnt his hand to a crisp only two days before during the last days of the Diwali festival letting off a firework and the outlook for right hand, his livelihood looked bleak. It wasn’t two days before it was nearly 100% healed after Ali The Argentine gave it the treatment.
So the festival runs over the course of five days officially but the town is going off for about 7 days before the full moon night and 4 days after the full moon night. The camel fair is right on the edge of Pushkar after passing the Brahmin temple anyone can direct passage there, the trick is to know how to get there by avoiding the main Bazaar which gets more and more crowded until the peak day when it can take up to an hour to make the usual 10 minute jaunt.
The main bazaar is just one street back from the holy Pushkar Lake. It’s going off during the camel fair with constant holy music playing and worshippers touching the place where part of Brahmas lotus weapon touched the earth after he dispatched Vajranabha. The Bahmin temple also gets progressively more trafficked. On the ghats of the Pushkar lake there are no shoes allowed but one may carry them in ones hands and it is so not uncommon to see someone walking brazenly over the holy grounds in travellers boots or locals chapals equally. However don’t roll up on the Brahmin temple as the festival goes on with shoe’s you’re not willing to surrender to an insane constantly trafficked shoe mountain.
It is just a marvel to see this little town going mental. There are a few main areas to float between. I whiled away hours and hours just walking between and interacting in these few areas.
The main bazaar
It’s where the simplest to use restaurants are. There are endless shops selling all of the tourist stuff. Near constant heckling. All around fun place. There are lots of little alleyway shortcuts and thoroughfares and because it’s the last street before the lake it has shops made from ghat buildings and entranceways to all of the various ghats. All the roof top restaurants just about sell beer which is cool because alcohol is illegal in Pushkar in step with the Brahmin tradition of not taking the alcohol. Meat is also not allowed but yes, this is India, of course you can get it anything is possible but you’ll have to search for it. Ajmer is also only half an hour away if you need meat.
The Lake
The lake (don’t swim the water is rank!) and it’s surrounding ghats are a great place to just chill out. Some parts are insanely trafficked during the festival time but there is near always a place that one can go to and just chill out and contemplate. You must not wear shoes but you can carry them there (unlike in the Brahma temple) and in places there are signs saying no photography however this is only really referring to the fact that people bathing should not be photographed, no one will care if you are shooting so long as you’re not snapping bathers. Loads of brothers are patrolling the ghats and the surrounding areas offering Pujas (prayer rituals) to passing westerners. They are masters of manipulation and conversation. They are going to ask you for money if you receive a puja from them. Just be strong and do what any Indian would do and give them ten rupees, they’ll try and try and sometimes even turn rude but all they did was say a few words, give you a flower that’s worth less than nothing to them and probably tie a piece of string around your wrist, no one is giving them huge denominations of western currency to do this no matter what they may say. Observe their skills in influence and manipulation but remain strong.
However this is not the strongest con going around at the Pushkar camel fair I’ll describe that right now. Sheeva, Ali the Argentine and I had just walked into the camel fair area for the first time and we were blown away, so many camels, horses being ridden bareback through the crowds, motorbikes zooming in every direction and hundreds of Indians trying to sell everything from sugar cane to camel rides to tourist knick knacks. We were approached by a group of three or so young girls offering free hena. Sheeva and Ali were immediately taken and began getting hena done on their hands the dunes in amongst all of the action. I went off my separate way and started exploring the area. I walked around for an hour or so and spent an hour or so haggling with a guy for some ganja and ended up smoking a J with him on top of the biggest sand dune and met up with Sheeva again afer. I asked her where Ali had gone and she told me she’d gone with the hena girls and their family (the mother another young girl and a baby had joined them) to their home.
A few hours later we caught up with Ali her face all lovely and made up her arms covered up to her elbows with henna and the greatest smile on her face. She’d just come from the carnival area where the Indian girls had taken her on rides bought her fairy floss and even a scarf that she was proudly wearing. She’d just had the best time and tomorrow she was going to see their home. We met her again the next day and boy oh boy was she low. Would you believe it, that family was living in squalor. They were living in a tent full of holes on the edge of the camel fair and looked to be having a rough time of it but Ali being the good natured caring person that she is was going to help them out. She assessed that they needed a tent and the next day at 09:00 the girls were going to meet her to take her to buy a tent for them for something like 6000 rupees (110USD). Alarm bells started going off for me and I told her this in the nicest possible way. She was receptive and took this advice on board and started to ask around with some locals. She’d made great friends with an Indian guy Pawan who’s restaurant we frequented and when she asked him he just laughed. He explained that this is just another one of the jobs that people do at the fair. With the huge influx of tourists for the festival instead of their only being one in one hundred people ripe for the scamming there were now 20 of two thousand tourists ripe for the scamming. He explained that after the transaction was made and Ali moved on they would simply return the tent and give the seller a cut, they would even arrange this transaction right in front of her with the tent seller without her ever knowing. It’s a larger version of the old mother with baby begging for milk which she’ll then just return for cash. Con artists know how to play off your emotions, they’ve done it before they’re very good at it.
He explained that these people probably have a house with a television in it in Ajmer with a father that works in construction who spends any money he doesn’t put towards home making on liquor. She was shocked. Pawan just laughed and we went out with him that night and had a great time. Sure enough 09:00 rolled around the next day and not a minute after the girls were there waiting to escort Ali to the ATM to get out cash for the tent, however by some grace of lore Shiva her ATM card had ceased working the night before. Needless to say the girls were not pleased and it was obvious to see this in their new mannerism. She managed to escape them but said she would talk to them later. She spoke to our chef Dolath and he ran through the exact same story Pawan had told us laughing the whole way through until he got to the end and got deadly serious asking if she’d handed over any money, when she said no he got right back to laughing his ass off. The girls saw Sheeva and I in the stadium the next day and all they could ask us was “where’s Ali? Come to our tent? Where is Ali?”. They even brought along their “little brother” to manage the English speaking. It’s a nice little racket that they run, more for fun our Indian friends told us than anything and they’re damn good at it. If her ATM card hadn’t of worked she may well have just gotten done, which is not so bad, hell 100USD wont kill you but it’s just such a waste to get conned. I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there that need help, but if you’re serious about helping people work with an established organization or start one yourself.
The Livestock and Handlers Living Space
This is one of the most exciting aspects of the Pushkar camel fair. Camels for days, there are just so many of them and their owners living in the open and in their tents on the sand dunes on the border of Pushkar. There’s also a horse section and some cows but otherwise one can just get lost walking around this area. There’s also true watery Rajasthan dal to be had, it’s ridiculously hot. I spent most of my time on top of a hill in the livestock area where there was a shot set up with shade. Be warned though this shop sells pepsi for 100rupees a pop. It was up here that I also managed to score some ganja from some brothers who were selling wares from Fatehpur Sikri. There was a group of ten Indian boys (unmarried) and two men who were running their crew. They had a shop in the festival area (which in the back doubled as their living, sleeping and cooking area) with all the other shops and they had also invested into putting a shop on top of the hill next to the 100 rupee soft drink and chai shop. I got badly ripped off on the ganja but it was just about worth it to make some friends. I would see the guys every day and when my girlfriend and I would go walking in the camel fair area during the night time (this is the best time to go into the camel fair, there are no other white faces there, it’s an amazing experience) we would go and hang out with them as well. The photographic opportunities in the livestock area are off the charts except you’ll have to be careful not go get a million other photographers in your shots. There are certain parts of the camel fair that must just look exactly as they looked hundreds of years ago, that is until someone pulls out a mobile phone. One night as I stood in the doorway of a guest house near the fair I had three old traditionally garbed Rajasthani farmers walk right up to me and start talking to me in Rajasthani just like it was the most normal thing in the world, Pawan came walking out of the guest house laughing and he moved them on. He explained to me laughing that these are just mad country people with no concept of modernity and the west, such that they were asking me if there was room to stay at my guest house.
The Carnival and Stadium
A lot of action here and where the real Indian Carney’s should be filmed, they all look just so glum. There are about three petrol powered pirate ship rides with no restraints. About three Indian Ferris wheels which are anything but romantic with their vomit inducing nauseating speed sans restraints. We did in fact see one India girl vomit right in the middle of the ride. There is a circus that is constantly running although oftentimes it can be embarrassingly un-funny and just downright lame. There’s a mini rollercoaster and not one but two Indian style wheel of death’s.
I only saw one wheel of death show and it was the most amazing show I have ever seen, forget Circ Du Solei, forget Chris Angel the India Wheel of death is hands down the most ballsiest and psychopathic entertainment I have ever seen. 30rupees. The audience takes the stairs to stand on top of a platform encircling a 25ft circular wall with two motorbikes and two little hatchbacks parked in the middle at the bottom. They start their engines and with a tiny head of steam start driving around the bottom of the 25ft wooden wall. As their speed picks up they reach higher and higher on the wall, this all happens in an instant until they are speeding around, two hatchbacks and two motorcycles, 25ft of the ground snatching 10 and 20 rupee notes from the outstretched hands of screaming and smiling Indians. There are children in the backs of the cars grabbing money. The guys on the motorbikes are driving so effortlessly horizontal at 25ft in the air that they can close their eyes and stretch out their hands crucifix style in between rupee snatching rounds. They move through a disturbing routine of tailgating and weaving amongst each other before one by one descending back down to holy terra. After the show they stand out front of their wheel of death and soak up the smiles and cries of hero from the astounded crowd as they file out. It is a must see!
The stadium is pretty cool too. There are lots of pop up Indian circus performances with acts ranging from child contortionists to child slack line performers to snake and monkey charmers. It’s also the place to get your camel ride on, pay no more than 150 rupees for a basic around the camel fair area and back ride. There are also all kinds of performances running throughout the day and night including a foreigners vs Indian cricket match, a turban tying competition and a mustache competition.
The Sunrise and Sunset Lookouts
Super easy to find once in Pushkar, ask the nearest indian which one is the idea to observe the sunrise from and the other will be for sunset. The sunset walk takes about 40 minutes from the bottom of the track and it’s about the same of the sunrise track.
It’s an awesome time to be in Pushkar, although be warned it becomes massively overloaded with cops who will bust you if you Goose inefficiently or stealthlessly in public no matter how disinterested they look. I’ve been there when the camel fair has not been on before and it’s still a cool place but it’s just on mad overdrive when the festival is on so there’s a lot more exciting stuff going on and it in no way means you can’t get peace and quiet there so long as you’ve chosen a place with a good rooftop, this I think is always key in India, get high!
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