Java Oasis

After breakfast this morning, we set out to get a good coffee since the ones at our hotel have been pretty bad. We headed to a place in our book that mentions they have good chocolate doughnuts (Nige has a weak spot for these). We found the place, bought his doughnut, and he took one bite before deciding it was pretty bad and not worth eating. He gave it to one of the many stray dogs on the street, and even the dog wouldn't eat it. A good indication of how bad it was. We remembered seeing a coffee place across the street from the Raj Mandir Cinema 2 nights ago and headed there. We were pretty sure we couldn't go wrong, with a name including the word 'barista' and the fact that they have a book corner inside. It looks totally like any cute coffee shop at home, so we waited anxiously until they opened at 10:00. But as we sat and waited, we remembered our last attempt at eating in a 'western-looking' place in Agra, which turned out to be gross. But, we ordered our specialty coffee drinks and they were delicious. We sat there for at least an hour, a little javan oasis in the centre of India, drinking our caffeine and reading through magazines. There was a group of about 5 people about 17 years old inside, celebrating one of the girls' birthday. They had a cake, sang 'Happy Birthday' in English, and sat there chatting the morning away like many 17-year olds would. One of the guys broke out a guitar, and they started singing some Hindi songs. We wondered if they were some church group. Or I guess it would be called temple group. It was pretty tough to leave but we appreciated having a morning break from India.

We went back to our hotel, packed up our bags, used the internet for a bit, then caught a bus at 1:30, west to Ajmer. At the Ajmer bus station, we had to wind our way through the piles of trash, puddles of sewage, and amongst the roaming boars to find the next bus bound for Pushkar. We only had to wait about 10 minutes, but unfortunately we both had to use the toilets at the bus station in the meantime. Let's just say they were definitely the worst ones yet, and not an experience we'd like to relive.

The bus north to Pushkar is a local bus, jammed with people and baggage. But it's only a 25 minute drive over a small mountain, so it's not bad at all. This area could be in any desert-type place in Southern California, like Agua Dulce (where Kel's mum works), Temecula (northeast of San Diego) or similar places. We arrived in Pushkar in the late afternoon and walked to our hotel from the bus station. We didn't think we could go wrong with a place called 'The White House' and we were not disappointed. We dropped our gear in the room and headed out to explore the evening life in Pushkar. This small desert town is mostly known for its Camel Fair, held annually as a pilgrimage and livestock trading post. But since this fair is held in November, Pushkar was pretty quiet. We explored some of the street shops, and this place is definitely set up for tourism. Besides this, it's kind of a weird town in that it's so holy that no alcohol, meat or eggs are permitted. But we certainly had many offers of hashish during our short stay. After a bit of shopping and browsing, we headed back to our hotel for some diner. While we waited for our dinner to be made by the 13 year old cook we played a quick couple of games of Carrom. Carrom is a game possibly invented in India by the Maharajas. It is a combination of pool, marbles and air hockey. Nige actually played this about 10 years ago with friends and Kel picked the game up quickly. After a good meal we retired to bed.