Pushkar to Shahpura Bagh

February 19, 2010

Left Pushkar with our bags this morning for the city of Bhilwara and our next stay at Shahpura Bagh (more on that paradise later) via a train from Ajmer. We had some extra time so our driver took us to the Nashiyan Jain temple and to the Muslim holy site of Dargah Khwaja Sahib. The Dargah is the most important Muslim site in India but you wouldn’t know it by how you get there. The trip to the site is a real adventure, the car and driver can only go so far and are not allowed (nor is it physically possible) to get very close so you are forced to take an auto rickshaw up what have to be the most narrow and perilous alleys in India. This mile (?) long alley is just wide enough for the rickshaw, a gutter and a pray; however, as this is India, there are also stores, food shops, homes, pigs busy eating stuff from the gutters/sewers (don’t ask what they’re eating!), a few holy cows and some unholy pedestrians all crammed into this alley which is no wider than an average closet! We go shooting up this alley (the only pale faces in town) pushing everyone but the cows into the gutter to mix with the ever eating pigs until we come to a dead end. We climb out of the rickshaw and blindly follow our just met but oh so fully trusted (?) driver through another narrow walkway to a 3 foot “gate” once we crawl through the gate we are told to take off our shoes then walk in this throng of folks (and cows) to the Mosque. It was worth it - the place is gorgeous and clean with one of the most beautiful art shows we’ve seen, this is a mosque and shrine donated by Akbar in 1567 and it still looks amazing.
Steve