Pushkar Camel fair
When Shamik first told me about his plans for Pushkar trip, I was a bit apprehensive. However seeing many riders joining in and a push from my mom to visit the Pushkar Camel Fair, I decided to join the bandwagon as well.
4th November 2006: Delhi - Jaipur - Kishangarh - Pushkar
With several chores that I had to do on the day before, I couldn't get any sleep before the ride. However there was little time to think about this, as I tried my best to mount saddle bag and three sleeping bags on my motorcycle.
With everything securely tied to the back seat I headed out to Motibagh Gurudwara where rest of the gang was waiting. After waiting for few more minutes for rest of guys to show up, it was time to move on.
Despite the cold, every one was in high spirits and soon we were cruising comfortably on the NH-8. It was quite a sight to watch headlights of our 12 motorcycles piercing the darkness to illuminate NH-8. With still quite a time left for the sunrise and having covered 100odd kms we decided to take a tea break.
Dhaba owner was delighted to see so many customers so early in the morning and promptly served us tea. After sipping on hot tea it was time to get back on the road. After riding for another 60-70kms decided to stop at another Dhaba for breakfast.
After having breakfast it was time to get back on the road, with the sun out it was decided that every one would ride according to their pace while Manik would lead and I would do the duty of the sweeper to ensure no one gets left behind.
At the beginning of Jaipur - Kishangarh highway we decided to regroup and meet Mr. Bhuwan Singh who was suppose to join us from there. However when I met him I learnt that he had to cancel his trip because he was a member of a blood bank in Jaipur and was suppose to give blood that evening. If there is ever a noble reason not to ride, than this has to be it. After all how many of us not only take time out to give blood and even cancel our trip plans to help another human being. Kudos to Mr. Singh, we left with a promise to ride together some day.
With the straight 6 lane 96km long highway in front of us, it was time to get things in high gear. All most all of us started to rip and to take our motorcycles to what ever maximum speed we could achieve, I tried to resist the temptation for some time. However I finally gave in and started to ride as fast I could, toward the end of the highway Shamik, Manik and I stopped at a restaurant since Shamik was feeling a bit sleepy. With lot of foreigners around I suspected the prices of every thing to be a little costly, however didn't anticipate that they would charge us Rs.30 per cold drink that costs Rs.9 otherwise. Note to self, don't stop at a place where a lot of foreigners in luxury buses stop!
We teamed up with the rest of the crew 13kms before Pushkar for lunch:
After filling our bellies we rode on the twisty and scenic state roads to reach a bustling Pushkar town. We negotiated our way through crowd filled small allies to reach Pink Floyd cafe, where we would be dumping our luggage today.
We were given a small room in a school (schools are closed in Pushkar for the duration of the fair) in front of the cafe, here we dumped our luggage and made our way out to the back of fair ground.