Pushkar, Rajasthan

I got into Pushkar about 8.30 pm, and made my way round the lake to the hotel. I stayed in OM, it's swimming pool had not yet been filled up but the room was 100 rupees a night, and they have a really cool pet tortoise there who eats bananas!

It is so relaxed in Pushkar and you get no hassle from any of the shop owners, you do get a few guys chasing you with flowers to make 'puja' or celebrate 'brahma' festival. I decided to get it over and done with to get my 'pushkar passport' a bit of red and yellow string that's tied round your right wrist, you can actually buy a meter of the stuff for 5 rupees, so it's not worth the hassle and the money. I only gave 50 rupees and the guy wasn't very happy with me, so I told him that God didn't need money, it seemed to work, and no more hassle from people trying to give me flowers for the lake!

I took time to relax here and soak up the scenery and ambiance of the place, it's a great place to meet other travellers and to my surprise, there weren't actually a huge amount of tourists there.

Monkeys at the ghats I decided from there to go to Mount Abu, although recommend getting the train from Ajmer for a hassle free trip, you can get a local jeep from Abu road to Mount Abu and as they are shared it's only 20 rupees per person.

Sunset Cafe and the ghats are probably one of the best places to sit and watch the sunset, people are playing music there, and a lot of people go to watch it, you can here the bells ringing out from temples across the lake - wow.