A hike and a birthday

5am wake up call!! Jo could not physically get out of bed...she was poorly yesterday and was definitely in need of some decent sleep. I managed to drag mysef out of bed and throw some clothes on for our early morning hike up to the temple of the first wife of Lord Brahma. We left in the darkness and so got to see a beautiful sunrise. Today is also Raghu's birthday. Instead of all wishing him a happy birthday at 5am before our hike, we all kept schtum! Mean hey!? But it was worth it. Christina and Caroline had managed to buy a birthday cake yesterday so on arriving at the top of the (big!) hill, we all broke into a chorus of happy birthday and presented him with his cake!! He looked so happy!! And so did all the monkeys who got to eat well over half of the birthday cake!

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at an amazing rooftop restuarant which served porridge!!! I was so happy...I've missed my morning porridge!

After catching up on a few hours sleep at the hotel, Jo and I head into Pushkar for some shopping!!! The streets are filled with clothes, jewellery, bag, etc... shops. Amazing fun! We went back to the resturant where I had breakfast and had the most amazing lunch of hummus and falafel. Yum! We also met the owner of the restuarant, Sandeep, who explained the meaning of our names in Hindi. Jo's name means some kind of wheat, my name means your!

We, of course, couldn't resist the shops and bought several things each. Amongst them, Jo got some hippie trousers (which I now like to call her "fancy pants") and I got a nice long dress. All extremely cheap!!!

To celebrate Rahgu's birthday we went out for a nice buffet dinner. Which Raghu paid for!?! Apparently in India, if its your birthday, you pay! He even bought a load of drinks for us all to have back at the hotel. Alcohol is actually banned in Pushkar but he managed to find some somewhere!

Pushkar has been amazing and we'll be so sad to leave. But definitely a place to come back to in the future!

Tam xx