Weimar to Pushkar – the journey begins on November 9th, 2010

Weimar train station: I and my 2 backpacks plus a food back.

I think I am carrying around 23 kg around with me, but that is all I've got for however long I will travel, so it's not that bad.

Katharina & Tom

My friends Katharina and Tom from Munich.

Thanks so much for hosting me and being so great on my last day in Germany. Thanks for the best Pizza from Munich and all the other good food and drinks we had.

Dubai

 

These pictures are especially for Tom-Justin and Torsten – as you both imagined: Dubai is full of Ferrari’s and rich Sheiks.

Dubai is a great city, especially if you have a tour guide called: Sonja. 

Sonja, thanks so much for showing me around in old and new Dubai.  
Dubai has the biggest buildings, shopping malls, water games, public aquarium etc. – nice beaches, good food and more - it's worth going there for sure.

Pushkar is a small, magical, desert-edged town with 400 milky-colored temples curled around a holy lake. It's an important Hindu pilgrimage centre, with one of the worlds few Brahma temples.

I went mainly there because of the Camel fair but also the market, the Ghats, the temples are definitely worth seeing.

Especially around the time of the full-moon, which will be the weekend of the 21^st – 22^nd of November, pilgrims come to bathe in the sacred waters of the Pushkar lake and its fifty-two bathing Ghats. So the town gets super crowded.

Holy cows on the way to the camel fair – they seem to enjoy the market. 

 

The, 'Best Falafel shop' in Pushkar and his owner. I am sorry Tom but if you and me thought the best Falafels are from Paris or Berlin – it was wrong, Pushkar is the place to get them.

The camel fair is not only about trading camels and cattle, it has also a major cultural program.

Moustache competition

Matka Race (Water pot race for women)

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You can find herds of camels crossing your bath on the way to the Savitri Temple – where you can see the sun-set best, when I was there, it happened to be also the time of the hot-air balloon show.



                                                                            


 

I also enjoyed a 1 ½ hour camel ride: a bit into the desert and back – nice, relaxing.

I will be leaving Pushkar on Monday to go to Jodhpur – also called the Blue City.

The beginning and the meaning...

...of my blog's title.

Surely not everyone will immediately understand what it means, and it took me a while to decided which title to choose. There are so many options and to pick the right one can be quite a task but finally I chose this one because:

* it took me 33 years to take this step (but as you all will probably agree on: Better later, than never, right?)
* the elephant is a symbol of good luck to India - and what can I wish more for than 'good luck' on this journey, which starts in Delhi, a city with approx. 12 million inhabitants (when I think of that, I already start missing Luzern :))
* a gap, also means for me to take a break from the 'known' to experience the 'unknown' and to be open to whatever comes and learn from it.

I would be happy to hear from you all during my journey.

Happy days and Namaste,

Eylin