Month: May 2017

I Really Wanted to Love the Hippie Outpost of Pushkar, But This…

Published by Jenn

From everything I had read, Pushkar sounded like my kind of place. A placid lake in a small desert outpost? Yes please. It was just the relief one needed from the mania of New Delhi and the traffic-choked streets of Jaipur. But what had me seriously travel-stoked on Pushkar was that it supposedly enjoyed some seriously boho vibes. My guidebook wrote: “Pushkar’s spiritual energy also attracted the hippy overlanders of the 1960s, and the budget hotels and cafes set up to cater for them have kept it firmly on the backpacker trail.” Complicit in this description was this travel blogger’s swoon-worthy review: 6 Reasons to Put Pushkar on Your Bucket List Perfect! I thought. Just my brand of gypset travel.   Except that it wasn’t, which I realized when my expectations confronted reality. You see, I had anticipated more of this…   but found more of this:   Err…that is not my brand of boho. Allow me to recount our visit. We arrived in Pushkar just before the golden hour, some 90 minutes before sunset. Sadly, our …

Are Photo Shoots Becoming Our New Travel Souvenir?

Published by Jenn

I’ll be the first to admit, photo shoots aren’t commonplace among travelling flashpackers. So how in the hell did I end up dressed in a lengha, spinning in the courtyard of the Fairmont Jaipur? It all started pretty innocently… Have you ever heard of Flytographer? Basically it’s the Airbnb of photographers. Most people are using the service to capture marriage proposals in Paris or European holiday candids. Since Greg and I loved the wedding photos we had taken in Havana, we figured, why not do the same in India? A month before we left, I did a quick search to see if there were any Flytographers listed in Rajasthan. Search result: zero. Long story short, I linked up with Navin Varma, a Mumbai-based photographer who was up for a collaboration; one that meant he’d need to catch two planes (each way, no less) to get to Jaipur. Through my work contacts, I managed to connect with Fairmont Jaipur, which kindly let us shoot on their jaw-dropping property. (And then fed us breakfast!) Now, I will say that my original vision …