From Udaipur to Pushkar on horseback - Day One

You all already know passionate I am about horses. One of the great things about horse riding (apart from the fact that you get to ride a horse) is the wide range of activities you can do whilst on a horse. Just to name a few: show-jumping, cross country, dressage, western riding (cutting, barrel racing), polo-cross, polo, endurance …etc. 

When I was in school I did a lot of eventing (the combination of show-jumping dressage and cross country all in one day) but that was replaced by polo when I went to university. There is one thing, though, that I have always and continue to love, perhaps almost as much as polo, are horse safaris. By safaris I mean covering long distances in nice places. It combines my love of travelling with that of being on horse back. 

So it should come to no surprise that I signed up my poor husband and myself to one of India’s greatest horse safaris: Udaipur to Pushkar.

Pushkar is another town in Rajasthan, about 450-500km away from Udaipur. It is known as a very spiritual city and once a year hosts a giant camel and horse fair where thousands and thousands of people come with even more camels and horses to buy, sell or just look. There are all sorts of competitions taking place such as the most beautiful camel or the best dancing horse. (Yes, Indian horses dance, more on that later.)

The idea behind the Udaipur-Pushkar fair is to go deep into the Rajasthani country side and reach Pushkar during the fair. 

Now, I already did this safari several years ago but I loved it so much and I wanted Manjeev to see it so decided to do it again. To add a bit of a challenge (because, y’know, 6-7hours on horseback every day isn’t tough enough) I decided to go bareback - i.e. without a saddle. 

There are 6 of us on horses: an Australian couple, Dinesh the owner of the horses and organiser of the safari, one of his staff and us. Oh, and of course, a whole team traveling in a truck to make sure we eat delicious food and sleep in comfortable beds at night (you didn’t really think I was going to suffer it, did you?). 

The first day was relatively easily. We covered about 35km leaving Udaipur. We did have to cross a highway and ride on a few roads but for the most part stayed on smaller paths with little traffic. Udaipur is surrounded by lakes which makes for divine views. There are all sorts of birds chirping around and diving into the water, especially the electric blue Kingfisher. It’s also very green and hilly with the Aravali mountains in the back ground. 

In the evening we camped near a dried up lake. As every one was relaxing around a nice cup of masala chai someone spotted something moving near our feet. It was a baby snake. I know nothing about snakes but according to those who know more, it was a viper and could have bit us. Luckily we were all fine. We spent the rest of the evening talking about all the wonderfully dangerous creatures one gets to come across whilst living in Australia…