Howdy Folks!
Just wanted to send out an Happy
Thanksgiving! Hope everyone is gorging
themselves on goodies (I think my
Thanksgiving dinner is going to be Alu
Goobi,
I'm in Pushkar and sadly on my
last leg of my
decided to hang out an extra week
and unwind on a Thai beach (I'm flyin'
through
neat right now because it's the
CAMEL FESTIVAL!!! How great is that!?!
There are so many camels here, as far as you can see in the
hill there
are camels. Camels, camels, camels,
and I love 'em all. It's pretty
surreal to be in the middle of
thousands of camels and hear people
chattin'
about who knows what (price of camels, the fine lookin'
haunches
on that one over there, current
interest rate on camel loans...) and just
hear the sounds of zillions of
camels (blaaaah, uuuuuaaaahhh,
ssslllooooppp...).
Not only can you get camels here at the fair, but you can
deck your camel
out in just about any camel
accessory you could ever want. You got your
ankle bells, necklesses,
nose rings, super shnazzy saddles, carts, oh you
name it. The camels are also
sporting special hair-dos with stars,
stripes, circles... Wow is about
all I can say.
The other aspect of Pushkar is
pretty neat too, it's a very holy place
for Hindus. Lord Brahma is said to
have picked out this spot especially
for praying to him (who else).
There is a holy lake that is surrounded by
ghats
where people go to bathe and pray. Right now there are lots of
people praying, it will culminate
on the 30th with tons of pilgrims
coming especially to pray at the
lake.
This place is also a hotbed for sadus.
They're all over the place. They
are kinda
like a Indian hippy. They turn to an ascetic life, which
includes not only giving up stuff
but also leaving your family, in the
hopes of breaking out of the cycle
of rebirths. Everywhere you look is a
sadu, hangin' out on some steps, meditating in a garden, smoking
pot on a
ghat,
walking down the street with their mutant cows (have extra legs
coming out of their back, yuck),
they are just everywhere.
Well I just wanted to send out a quickie e-mail to wish you
all a Happy
Thanksgiving. I hope you are having
a good one with either friends or
family.
Peace,
-Tim