Jaisalmer

About 12 hours after leaving Jaipur we arrived in the desert city of Jaisalmer – the end of the line in terms of Indian railways, just desert until the Pakistan border from here on. A fairly uneventful overnight journey, only one small problem with the couple across from us didn’t seem to have a ticket so they had to take turns at sleeping, sadly the woman did the most of the sleeping along with plenty of guttural snoring! We awoke to a very barren desert scene, not the sand dunes of the Sahara but more like the desert road area of the North Island, with low growing plants and sand, but a hell of lot hotter. We again were picked up by the hotel – this one called Hotel Renuka, saving us hassle and time. After Jaipur, Jaisalmer was a lot more welcoming, it’s a small city that you could walk across slowly in 30 minutes. It’s dominated by a massive stone fort, which unlike any of the others so far is a living thing, with houses and hotels, temples, stores and everything else needed in an Indian town. We spent the afternoon wandering in around the fort and its ramparts before having dinner (possibly the worst so far in the “New Top Deck Restaurant” it’s s**t).

The next morning we went and booked a sunset trip to Sam Sands, the nearest set of dunes to Jaisalmer. We also managed to visit Kanchan Shree ice cream parlour (very 1950’s) for Makaniya lassi – renowned around the world apparently and it was very good, we went back the next day as well for another one of his cold, saffron flavoured dairy delights. We avoided a sharp rain shower on the way back to the hotel, which had most people delighted apart from the rooftop restaurant owners, who’s takings fell like the rain due to the lack of seating areas.

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At 3 we left for the jeep ride out to the dunes, it was only 40 km’s away and with the sun setting here at around 5:30, it seemed a bit overkill. On the way out another storm rolled in and it dumped it down, a place that can have a drought for years and we get all the rain! We made it out to the ‘dunes’ (thankfully we had read the guide prior to booking so we weren’t to shocked by the scene out here) it’s basically any British beach (with sand) on a bank holiday weekend, slapped in the middle of a desert – with Camel drivers and endless amounts of drink sellers hounding you for business. Also small girls in tradition Rajastani dress dance on cue, to music made by their fathers(?) weird tooth instruments, no matter how far you walked into the dunes they would follow. At 4:15 thinking we had 1.5 hours more of this at least to go, our initial thoughts of the 3 pm start being early were correct. For the next couple of hours we perfected our piss off and leave us alone technique, both in terms of how quickly and from what distance we could stop their advance towards us from. 50 metres was the record.

The sunset also didn’t happen due to all the cloud and after waiting around for a few other people sharing the jeep, we headed back into the night. There was one major surprise for everyone including the driver, which was a river that had been created in the downpour, creating a ford about ½ a metre deep. We just about piled into the back of a car and a tuk-tuk, who were unable to cross it. Luckily for us their lights alerted us to it, or else we would have piled into it at Indian warp speed.

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The last day we spent sorting out more travel arrangements for the South. We had another look around the fort and then went to a fancy hotel, 1 km out of town to use their pool which was cold and refreshing, just as well as the rain held off for once and we were back to the dry heat of the desert. And ready for out next journey the 23:15 Jodhpur Express.

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