Not so Pushy (Pushkar, India)

Don't have much time, I was going to leave this morning around 8am to catch a bus, but they come every 30min. I kinda got stuck here in Pushkar. Its a beautiful little town (or valley) that's surrounded by these hills. In the middle there's this holy lake which is quite lovely. Unfortunatley and fortunaltey, the town is very backpacker oriented, therefore its easy to get 'stuck'.

For the first couple days I just kinda hung around and walked up and down the market, talked with other travellers and such. I was able to go up to these 2 different hills to watch 2 sunsets. There's lot of Israeli's here, like tonnes. They're all nice though. I met a Philippino American girl! That's cool to meet someone in the same situation as me, getting called Japanese, Nepali and Korean all the time. I actually met her and her boyfriend in Calcutta, but bumped into them here again and actually hung out. I watched another Tabla concert and was offered a "special chocolate ball." I almost bought one until I realized it was Chocolate covered in Hashish. Close call. The weird thing is, the city is so holy, no drugs, alcohol or meat is allowed. Go figure.

I met up with Emilie and Melissa again yesterday, but we depart again in about an hour. It was a cool little reunion after being seperated for 3 days.

I almost this guy Shyam, an Indian man working at my hotel. He's got a very sad story, how he's stuck here too. But in a different sense. His problem is that he's a computer engineer but cannot find a job and he hates working at the hotel. He feels that his god put him here to work and then good things will come. All he wants to do is support his parent in Nepal. He doesn't know what to do. He asked if there's any work for him in Canada, ANY work. I told him I don't know how immigration works, but I'd try to help him if I can when I return back to Canada. Can any of you help?

The people here are really nice, not like all the other pushy vendors I've been meeting throughout India. Ironic that it's called Pushkar.

Does anyone understand who or what Hare Krishna is? I don't. They play this song/chant everywhere. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare Ramma, Ramma, Hare Krishna, etc, etc. For like hours. I always thought it was cult like, but maybe I'm jsut ignorant.

Okay, gotta go!