First solo ride to Pushkar

I’d wanted this bike since childhood and finally bought the Super Meteor 650 at 40 once I could afford it, and just before Holi, not long after picking it up, I had to decide where to take it first. I usually ride in a group of four or five but this time decided to go alone before organising anything like that and see how it felt, so Pushkar was the obvious pick since it’s close enough to Jaipur and worth being in for Holi. I had no plan beyond the bike and some clothes and riding gear and left home around 7 AM — not especially early — and rode in.

Zostel

Pushkar around Holi is one of the busiest times to be there and I hadn’t booked anything so I just showed up at Zostel and hoped, and got lucky when a bed turned out to be free. I dumped my bags in the dorm locker and peeled off the riding gear and then sat there for a minute not sure what to do next since it was my first time solo in a hostel with no group to fall back on.

I solved that by getting back on the bike and riding out to a restaurant on the road between Ajmer and Pushkar that looks over Anasagar Lake, where I stopped for coffee and breakfast and sat for about an hour and a half before heading back to Zostel as the day started getting hot.

The group that found me

Back at the dorm the room had filled up, and Deeghal Bhaumik, in from Gurgaon with a fair few solo rides of his own behind him, got talking with me. The two of us moved out to the common area where people kept arriving and joining in and drifting off and coming back in the kind of loose mingling that only really happens at a hostel, and we lost three or four hours there without noticing. By evening we had a proper group — Deeghal, Shweta, Khushboo and Hardik — five or six of us swapping travel stories.

Desert jeep safari

Zostel's community manager was mingling with the group that evening and had one thing to offer — a desert safari by jeep — and the whole group signed up. An hour later we all piled into an open-top jeep that was slow to start but picked up speed once the driver hit sand and turned the ride into a bouncing bumping shouting mess with everyone thrown into each other on the open bed. We stopped at a quiet spot for sunset that felt properly peaceful after the noise of getting there and then headed back the same way while the driver leaned into the rough patches on purpose, so everyone came back covered in dust and grinning.

That night back at Zostel we hung around the common area by the pool for good music and drinks and more talking. Zostel Pushkar runs that space well — open-air and right by the pool, with the kitchen serving food whenever and enough of a crowd that you keep bumping into people you'd already met that day.

Ghat mornings

I was up early the next day while Deeghal was still asleep and went down to the ghats alone, where I sat for close to an hour watching people at their morning prayers and an aarti going in that particular calm the ghats have early on. I walked back for tea and partway through Deeghal caught up, having woken up and asked to join, so we went back to the ghats together for another hour and then on to the Brahma Temple.

Kachori and malpua

Walking back from the temple we stopped for kachori at Ugmaji ki Dukan — one for Deeghal and two for me — and not far past that hit Ramji ki Dukaan for Rabri Malpua. Morning malpua isn’t usually a draw but this one was worth it and we had one each, properly good.

A ride to Ajmer, for lunch

Deeghal took me pillion on his bike over to Ajmer for lunch at Mango Curry Restaurant on a friend’s recommendation, and we ordered a proper spread with rice and chapatis on the side. The portions were generous enough that finishing them felt like an achievement but we managed it anyway. On the way back we stopped by Anasagar Lake again to watch the birds and the city’s reflection in the water from under a tree with no rush and just sat there for a while.

Evening ghats, and colour in the chowk

In the evening Deeghal, Hardik and I went back to the ghats and sat for close to two hours just watching the aartis. Evening ghats hit differently from the morning ones with the chanting and the lamps and a different kind of quiet-loud.

From there we went into the town chowk, where the pre-Holi colour was already in full swing days ahead of the festival itself — colour and water and loud music and drums and people dancing in a mix of locals and travellers all mixed together — and we joined in for about an hour before pulling back out. I left Pushkar the next morning, two days before Holi itself, so this was as close to it as I got.

Pool music, pizza, and cards

We headed back to Zostel and showered off the colour and settled into a musical evening by the pool with drinks and some very average group singing and no complaints. Around 11 PM hunger won and we walked to a pizza place near Zostel that’s something of a fixture with the Israeli travellers who pass through Pushkar, where Deeghal and I were the only two Indians in the place that night, and the pizza was good. Afterwards Deeghal, Hardik, Shweta and I grabbed ice cream and played a few rounds of cards back at the hostel before we slept.

The ride home

I was up around 6 AM and packed and back on the road solo to Jaipur while Deeghal was still getting ready, and he left a couple of hours later for Delhi where he lives. The colour took about two hours to wash off once I was home.