Shopping for Apples, Pushkar Fair
Discussing Life
Rajasthani Pride
Discussing Life
Extreme Make-Up, Pushkar Fair
 Selling Cattle Feed, Pushkar Fair
Amazed near the Peanut Vendor
Pushkar Fair
 

Pushkar Camel Fair Video

India's Ultimate Rural Festival

Reviews from Our Guests

Thank you for arranging my trip to India! I had an amazing experience and memories that I will treasure forever. The culture was fascinating, the guides acted as great liaisons, and the drivers were efficient and timely. We had the personal attention unequaled by previous traveling tours. Again, this was an incredible trip and I am glad that I got to go with Easy Tours. Overall, this trip exceeded my expectations.

Cassandra Mani
 

Pushkar with Easy Tours

We are the pre-eminent upscale agency at the Pushkar Fair - ask someone who has been at the Fair and seen our guests enjoying the best facilities, the best lodging, the best seats (including available camel back seating to give you a better view!) for the events.

We reserve the best rooms at the only upscale resort in the Pushkar Region, Pratap Mahal, Ajmer-IHCL SeleQtions.

The locals at Pushkar recognize us as the pre-eminent luxury agency operating at the Fair and our guests get privileges that are the envy of all other tourists at the Pushkar Fair - we have thousands of referrals that will be happy to verify this for you.

We have a ratio of 1 Easy Tours Tour Director Guide, for every 3 to 4 Easy Tours guests at the Pushkar Fair. Most companies hand you over to a local agent who uses about 1 staff member for scores of visitors.

All three meals are included at your resort our guests during the Fair. An individual camel back safari in the desert is included (if you want one!), and you can ask for more than one at no charge.

 

About the Camel Fair

To an explorer from an advanced nation, this amazing cultural phenomenon will leave you spellbound, especially if you are with a great guide. The Pushkar Camel Fair is the world’s most massive cattle fair, and an incredible opportunity to see villagers from remote regions go about their business. Photographers cannot even begin to imagine their opportunities, with the desert backdrop, the colorful clothing, headgear, and lifestyles of the Rajasthani villagers, and, most of all, by the amazing activities that are always going on.

Yet what is most fascinating is having the opportunity to walk around the massive fairgrounds and watch the ongoing activity. You will see sellers preparing their ware for sale, from grooming them to training them. You will watch buyers as they inspect the camels and horses, from pulling lips over teeth, to lifting legs to check hooves, rubbing their hands over backs to detect potential issue with rideability, all of this will take you to a time that long ceased existing for 97% of the world’s cultures.

But, the most interesting thing you will observe will be the animated trading. You will watch facial expressions and gestures that are not constrained by polite modern sensibilities, although no disrespect is meant in their context. You will see age old negotiating tactics, such as when the buyer walks away with a disdainful shake of his head, and, sometimes, is reluctantly beckoned back by the seller. This is just a teaser - so much more goes on, it cannot be described on paper.

The Pushkar Camel Fair is a fascinating spectacle that occurs once a year in the small town of Pushkar, Rajasthan. It is your finest opportunity to experience rural India in its organic form. You will be surrounded by friendly and curious villagers, some of whom have never seen a foreign tourist in their lives, and are as astounded by you as you are by them. Many of them will have walked for weeks to bring their camels and horses to the event.

The Pushkar Camel Fair is scheduled between end October and late November (dates are determined by the lunar calendar every year), and villagers bring about 50,000 cattle (the majority of them are camels, but also a lot of horses, along with some other cattle) to trade & sell. The dates for the 2023 Pushkar Camel Fair are Nov. 20th through Nov. 27th, 2023. The best days to watch the villagers doing their cattle trading will be Nov. 24th & 25th, and that is when our guests will experience the fair, with an overnight stay on the 24th.

It also includes a plethora of activities such as processions, horse shows, camel races, camel and cow beauty contests, acrobatics, camel safaris and much more. The Pushkar Camel Fair is the most colorful gathering of humanity and livestock on our planet.

 

About the Festival

The small town of Pushkar is spread around a holy lake that has been a pilgrimage destination for centuries. Devout Hindu’s from Rajasthan and neighboring states visit the destination throughout the year to immerse themselves in the sacred water, but the numbers increase significantly during the days leading up to Kartik Poornima, one of the holiest days in the Hindu lunar calendar. This day coincides with the last day of the Pushkar Camel Fair, and is on Nov. 27th, in 2023.

Pilgrims start arriving a few days before the most auspicious day, praying to the God Brahma at his temple near the lake, and immersing themselves in the holy water. Our guests get to witness colorful religious processions parading through the streets of the now bustling town, where gypsy bazaars have cropped up everywhere.

 

2023 Pushkar Fair Schedule

Nov. 23rd: through Nov. 26th: Pushkar Cattle Fair. This is when most of the Pushkar Fair activities with the villagers, camels, horses and other cattle will take place. The cattle trading will be at its peak, and there will be various other shows and competitions, Pushkar Camel Fair groundsuch as camel beauty contests! The best days this year are going to be November 24th and 25th, and we have designed our tour itineraries to be in Pushkar during these days.


Nov. 20th through Nov. 22nd: Pushkar Cultural Fair. This is when many of the Rajasthan State government sponsored cultural activities will take place. There will be folk dance shows, music performances, and other similar activities. Please bear in mind that you will get to experience (much more comfortably) similar performances at a number of the luxury resorts you will stay at during your exploration of India. Most agencies take you to the Pushkar Fair on these dates despite the fact that many of the cattle trading villagers have not arrived at Pushkar.


Nov 27th: Pushkar Festival. This is the Holy Day of the Fair and thousands of Hindu pilgrims will take a dip in the holy lake at Pushkar. The small town gets extremely congested and we do not recommend that our guests participate in these activities.

 

‘Luxury’ Tents & Other Myths

The vast majority of agencies that advertise Pushkar Camel Fair tours have never had a staff member set foot in Pushkar! You are assisted by one local agent who is handling hundreds of clients while using inadequate lodging and other facilities.

Every year, for the few days of the Fair, a massive tented camp is set up at quiet a distance from the cattle trading grounds. Different Indian companies have their own blocks of tents here, including some that call their tents ‘Luxury’ and charge accordingly. These tents are not luxurious in any sense of the term, just larger and with a few more décor items.

All the tents available at Pushkar have these disadvantages -

  • Running water is provided by individual tanks that have to be manually filled by staff each time they run empty.

  • Are mostly packed tightly among scores of similar tents far away from the fair.

  • Most have no air-conditioning. You are in the desert - it gets hot in the day, & cold at night.

  • Have mass produced meals that will be among the worst food you eat in India.

  • Require long wait times for camels, camel carts, and other transportation to travel back & forth from the trading ground.
 

Weather in Pushkar

Pushkar Weather