I'd heard it's easy to get stuck in Pushkar. Visually, it's similar to Udaipur with its lakeside setting and simple adobe-style architecture as well as its multitude of roof-top cafes and handicraft dealers. Small temples are tucked between internet cafes and clothing stores as well as perched atop nearby peaks overlooking the town. It's an extremely holy place and every day there is some sort of religious procession through the town bazaar, usually involving a group of young boys pushing brightly-lit gawdy decorated images of various gods on flatbed carts while blasting traditional religious music on distorted cassette tapes through crappy speakers.

Kirti, our friend who ran the guesthouse we stayed at in Udaipur, came to Pushkar for two days with his Danish friend Jacob. They are friends with Ablu, the guy who runs "The Third Eye," an Isreali restaurant in town where I've spent a good many hours hanging out with, oddly enough, a group of Croatians, Slovenians, Lithuanians, Mexicans and Germans. This is statistically noteworthy as Chris and I speculate Isrealis outnumber other travelers here by about 10:1. I've heard that 40,000 Isrealis per year come to India and I imagine about half of that number are here right now. Most are here after serving their country's mandatory 3-year military duty, and India is a close-by, cheap place to travel. Americans are rare in these parts and I am frequently greeted by shopkeepers with a hearty "shalom!" There's a huge seder for Passover in Kathmandu on April 5 and it seems most Isrealis I meet are part of a mass exodus from India into Nepal in time for the big party.

For Saturday night's new moon, an Isreali guy tried to throw a trance party about 30 kms out of Pushkar. Over 150 people gathered at Oasis Guesthouse to load onto two busses out to the party location, but the new police force in Pushkar had other ideas and stopped the busses before they started their engines. A lot of disappointed people hung around Oasis, where I met and took an immediate liking to an Isreali woman named Maya. We hung out at her guesthouse talking for hours and she helped remind me why I am here. It felt good to connect with another woman who has been doing some of the same soul-searching that I have.

After leaving Maya's place I discovered I couldn't get into my guesthouse because they locked the door at 11 PM (we moved guesthouses and this one does not have a guy sleeping next to the door). I knocked on the door at The Third Eye and Ablu let me in. We listening to music and danced around the pool table, but we were soon interrupted by a clatter on the roof. Ablu ran outside, explaining the noise was some of the town's monkeys on their monthly New Moon trouble-making spree.

I followed him out as he chased away a monkey who had taken an interest in the restaurant's stack of soda crates. The roof outline was barely visible against the starry moonless sky and we listened in silence as hundreds of black-faced monkeys wreaked havoc all over town. Jumping from roof to roof, the monkeys were banging on windows, knocking things over, grabbing door handles and shaking them furiously. I am not sure if they were attempting to find food or just being cheeky, but I was thoroughly entertained by the ruckus they were causing. Later, a friend of Ablu's said in his thick Hindi accent, "Every night is monkey party."

India tied up the cricket series against Pakistan 2 games to 2. The locals celebrated in their usual way; by exploding unnecessarily loud fireworks in the middle of the streets.

With visions of "Aladdin" in my head, I'll be leaving Pushkar tonight to head west to the desert fortress town of Jaisalmer where I will meet up with Kirti again. It's a bit out of my way since my plan is to head to Nepal by early April, but it sounds like this may be my last chance to ride a camel through the sweeping sand dunes before it gets too hot or rainy.