Holy lake, camel fair, and India's only Brahma temple
Pushkar is one of the oldest and holiest cities in India — a small desert town in Rajasthan built around a sacred lake said to have appeared where a lotus petal fell from Lord Brahma's hand, and home to the only functioning temple to Brahma in the world. The ghats are raked smooth each dawn for morning prayers, and once a year the surrounding dunes become the world's largest camel fair — a five-day spectacle of livestock, folk music, and colour that draws 200,000 visitors.
Pushkar's origins predate recorded history; the Puranas describe Brahma himself founding the city after defeating a demon on this site. The town's 52 ghats and 400-plus temples were largely rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries after repeated destruction by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who demolished the original Brahma temple — the one standing today dates to that reconstruction period.