feet up in Pushkar

Well, Sherrie, Olli and Hugo went on west to Jaiselmer and I've come east (as is my wont) to Pushkar. A small holy town set around a sacred lake with lots of ghats (steps) going down to the water for the use of pilgrims.

I arrived on the bus (5 hours) and couldn't see my guitar, a mixture of indignation and relief flooded through me, until I saw that someone had put it on the overhead luggage rack - damn and blast it! So, lugged it off and splashed out on a rickshaw ride all the way from Amjer to Pushkar.

It's very nice and quite here, though well on the tourist trail. Lots of souvenir shops and their owners beckoning you in the whole time. They're quite pushy in Pushkar. But overall, quite a peaceful place to be. I've got the best room in town, no. 15 at the Lake View hotel. Balcony right over the ghat, no attached bathroom, but only 250 Rs. I think only room 17 has also has a similar view with balcony. Better even than the Pushkar Palace.

If I can get my act together and do some reading/writing, I may stay here for several days - we'll see how it goes.

I also want to see if I can make any progress on finding a way to SE Asia, found some websites, but no positive replies to my email enquiries yet to these websites.

www.HYPERLINK "http://www.starcruises.com/Destinations/index.html"starcruisesHYPERLINK "http://www.starcruises.com/Destinations/index.html".com/Destinations/index.html - starcare@starcruises.com.mywww.geocities.com/HYPERLINK "http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo"freightermanHYPERLINK "http://www.geocities.com/freighterman.geo".geowww.HYPERLINK "http://www.strandtravel.co.uk/strandvoyages/sv_main.asp"strandtravelHYPERLINK "http://www.strandtravel.co.uk/strandvoyages/sv_main.asp".co.uk/strandvoyages/sv_main.asp - voyages@strandtravel.co.ukwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.freightercruises.com"freightercruisesHYPERLINK "http://www.freightercruises.com".com (aka www.freighter-cruises.com)www.HYPERLINK "http://www.freightertravel.com.au"freightertravelHYPERLINK "http://www.freightertravel.com.au".com.auwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.freighter-travel.com"freighter-travelHYPERLINK "http://www.freighter-travel.com".comwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.freighterworld.com"freighterworldHYPERLINK "http://www.freighterworld.com".comwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.aws.co.uk/cruises/cruises.html"awsHYPERLINK "http://www.aws.co.uk/cruises/cruises.html".co.uk/cruises/cruises.htmlwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.grimaldi-freightercruises.com/inden.htm"grimaldiHYPERLINK "http://www.grimaldi-freightercruises.com/inden.htm"-freightercruises.com/inden.htmmembers.aol.com/HYPERLINK "http://members.aol.com/CruiseAZ/freighters.htm"CruiseAZHYPERLINK "http://members.aol.com/CruiseAZ/freighters.htm"/freighters.htmwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.seatravel.nl"seatravelHYPERLINK "http://www.seatravel.nl".nlwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.travltips.com"travltipsHYPERLINK "http://www.travltips.com".comwww.HYPERLINK "http://www.thecrewingagency.com.au"thecrewingagencyHYPERLINK "http://www.thecrewingagency.com.au".com.au - "if it involves ships, trawlers, yachts, barges or a wooden raft we can find the crew to man it"Cruising Crew List Index - database of crew seeking boats and boats requiring crew, organised by region (also has links to numerous other crew lists) www.cargoshipcruises.nl/English/cargo english.htm - also available in DutchPerkins Shipping - container ships Darwin/Dili (weekly) & Darwin/Singapore (fortnightly) Rooney Shipping - fortnightly livestock shipping service Darwin/Brunei Darwin to East Timor by container ship - first-hand account