Jaislemer Jallopies

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If you can afford a good seat and avoid the crush that you can expect in the cheaper classes, trains are a great way to travel in India. The distances are pretty large and generally the roads leave a lot to be desired. In addition, if you are over 5’8’’, you probably already know that you simply don’t fit in buses… The first hour of bus travel for me consists of trying to find a vaguely comfortable position, this always fails miserably and after another hour of intense pain all feeling leaves my lower body. The problems really start when it’s time to get off the bus, this requires at least half an hour of massage and light exercise to ensure you don’t fall flat on your face when you try to stand up as your numb legs buckle beneath you….

Buses are a little cheaper, but when the cost of travelling smoothly for around 300 hundred miles in the reclining air conditioned seats of a ‘Shatabdi’ express train and being served breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks is around £ 10, then I am afraid there is no contest. Have I convinced you yet?? Well, if that is not enough, then my final reason has to be that Indian train stations are so much more entertaining than your average dustbowl that constitutes a bus depot.

Anyway with that small educational transport rant over, back to our movements on the ground. We arrived at Jaislemer on the sleeper train the next morning having had a good night’s sleep (enjoying our clean blankets, sheets and pillow) and headed out to find our accommodation. We were greeted by a large ‘mob’ of placard waving touts, being controlled by the local constabulary - I have to say it was the most organized hassle we experienced anywhere. They were all required to stand in a line whilst trying to promote their hotel, quite a strange sight as you can see from the pic.

Following the trouble finding a room in Jaipur we had booked ahead this time, I had talked to a friendly sounding guy called ‘Little Jonny’ and we had arranged a room in one of the traditional houses within the walled old city. Before I go any further if you ever meet anyone with such a corny name as ‘Little Jonny’ and is Indian……RUN…..don’t stop, just move rapidly in the opposite direction! With that wonderful thing called hind sight, this is exactly what we should have done, but when met by the bombardment of touts at the station, we were chuffed with ourselves for having sorted everything out and happy to be chauffeur driven to our hotel (well OK, jammed into the back of a Autorickshaw with our rucksacks…)

After a welcoming chai (whether we wanted one or not) and the hard sell on his camel safaris, we were finally shown the room. It has to be said that it was lovely; carved stone and wooden shutters, with a balcony looking out over the narrow streets. We endured a bit more hassle as we headed out for lunch and we told ‘LJ’ that we would let him know about the safari later. He had offered us the tempting if highly improbably sounding ‘non-tourisitic camel safari’. This apparently went further afield and to villages where no one else did, including the one where he was from. “You won’t see another tourist” he said......I think he actually meant “you won’t see ONE other tourist…. you’ll see 50!!” He also asked if we wanted to visit the villages to which we explained that we didn’t if it was going to be a tourist trap where they simply wanted to beg for money. “Oh no” he said, “you will see many lovely local villages and they see so few people they won’t beg, they are just happy to see you”. Well, we only endured one such ‘lovely village’ where they pinched Lexa, grabbed my arms and tried to go through our pockets…delightful! The begging question is always difficult and in India is one you have to deal with quite frequently. In general we follow the ‘don’t give’ rule, the theory being that it just encourages people not to work and children to grow up with no aim except to get money by emotional blackmail and relentless hassle. Sure, there are plenty of deserving cases, but the people in these villages were shepherds and herdsmen with responsibilities and livelihoods, but who would rather sit around and get their kids to beg for easy money.

Another funny event (funny in hindsight) was the time when we had walked up on the dunes for a romantic moment on the sunset and were joined by a guy selling beer that appeared out of nowhere and insisted on serenading us with a mouth harp. It was unsolicited, unwanted and worst of all bloody awful. He really didn’t want to take no for an answer and it took some fairly aggressive body language before he gave up.

OK I’ve winged enough, you may be surprised to hear that despite the false promises and hassle we did actually have a good time! Lexa had never been on a camel and found the experience quite exciting, particularly on the second day when she was put on ‘Rocket’ a huge and rather randy camel. Luckily she only had one uncontrolled gallop due to the over excitement about the other female camel with us. She just held on for dear life and managed to survive the ordeal just looking a little shakey and insisting on swapping with me the next day.

It was a little chilly at night but we were given loads of heavy blankets and it was lovely sleeping under the stars and drinking our overpriced beer that ‘LJ’ had flogged us insisting it was selling it at the going rate.

So it was back to Jaislemer, where Little Jonny (bless him) had not reserved us the room we requested and we took our chance to escape his evil clutches. It was a relief to get away and think that we wouldn’t have to see him again.

By a happy coincidence it was the annual Desert festival in Jaislemere, so we spent our last day watching camel polo, camel and horse races. Underneath a crystal clear blue sky it made for some beautiful scenes and some exciting moments on the touchline as a herd of rampaging camels came toward us!

Jaislemer is a beautiful, if dusty old walled city that rises up out of the desert (I’m afraid the photo’s don’t show much of the city) and if you are thick skinned or don’t encounter someone prepared to lie quite as much as ‘LJ’ then it would be a magical place to stay. We don’t regret going but, we can honestly say we were overjoyed to be leaving!

Leaving this time unfortunately meant the bus and more precisely our first encounter with a sleeper bus. All I can say is…. don’t do it!!! It is a bit like being put in a Tupperware box (with the remains of someone else’s lunch still in it), the lid shut and being shaken mercilessly for 12 hours. The photo here is just after we had transferred to a new bus that was slightly cleaner and before we had been rattling around for hours, hence we are still smiling….
If you can afford a good seat and avoid the crush that you can expect in the cheaper classes, trains are a great way to travel in India. The distances are pretty large and generally the roads leave a lot to be desired. In addition, if you are over 5’8’’, you probably already know that you simply don’t fit in buses… The first hour of bus travel for me consists of trying to find a vaguely comfortable position, this always fails miserably and after another hour of intense pain all feeling leaves my lower body. The problems really start when it’s time to get off the bus, this requires at least half an hour of massage and light exercise to ensure you don’t fall flat on your face when you try to stand up as your numb legs buckle beneath you….

Buses are a little cheaper, but when the cost of travelling smoothly for around 300 hundred miles in the reclining air conditioned seats of a ‘Shatabdi’ express train and being served breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks is around £ 10, then I am afraid there is no contest. Have I convinced you yet?? Well, if that is not enough, then my final reason has to be that Indian train stations are so much more entertaining than your average dustbowl that constitutes a bus depot.

Anyway with that small educational transport rant over, back to our movements on the ground. We arrived at Jaislemer on the sleeper train the next morning having had a good night’s sleep (enjoying our clean blankets, sheets and pillow) and headed out to find our accommodation. We were greeted by a large ‘mob’ of placard waving touts, being controlled by the local constabulary - I have to say it was the most organized hassle we experienced anywhere. They were all required to stand in a line whilst trying to promote their hotel, quite a strange sight as you can see from the pic.

Following the trouble finding a room in Jaipur we had booked ahead this time, I had talked to a friendly sounding guy called ‘Little Jonny’ and we had arranged a room in one of the traditional houses within the walled old city. Before I go any further if you ever meet anyone with such a corny name as ‘Little Jonny’ and is Indian……RUN…..don’t stop, just move rapidly in the opposite direction! With that wonderful thing called hind sight, this is exactly what we should have done, but when met by the bombardment of touts at the station, we were chuffed with ourselves for having sorted everything out and happy to be chauffeur driven to our hotel (well OK, jammed into the back of a Autorickshaw with our rucksacks…)

After a welcoming chai (whether we wanted one or not) and the hard sell on his camel safaris, we were finally shown the room. It has to be said that it was lovely; carved stone and wooden shutters, with a balcony looking out over the narrow streets. We endured a bit more hassle as we headed out for lunch and we told ‘LJ’ that we would let him know about the safari later. He had offered us the tempting if highly improbably sounding ‘non-tourisitic camel safari’. This apparently went further afield and to villages where no one else did, including the one where he was from. “You won’t see another tourist” he said......I think he actually meant “you won’t see ONE other tourist…. you’ll see 50!!” He also asked if we wanted to visit the villages to which we explained that we didn’t if it was going to be a tourist trap where they simply wanted to beg for money. “Oh no” he said, “you will see many lovely local villages and they see so few people they won’t beg, they are just happy to see you”. Well, we only endured one such ‘lovely village’ where they pinched Lexa, grabbed my arms and tried to go through our pockets…delightful! The begging question is always difficult and in India is one you have to deal with quite frequently. In general we follow the ‘don’t give’ rule, the theory being that it just encourages people not to work and children to grow up with no aim except to get money by emotional blackmail and relentless hassle. Sure, there are plenty of deserving cases, but the people in these villages were shepherds and herdsmen with responsibilities and livelihoods, but who would rather sit around and get their kids to beg for easy money.

Another funny event (funny in hindsight) was the time when we had walked up on the dunes for a romantic moment on the sunset and were joined by a guy selling beer that appeared out of nowhere and insisted on serenading us with a mouth harp. It was unsolicited, unwanted and worst of all bloody awful. He really didn’t want to take no for an answer and it took some fairly aggressive body language before he gave up.

OK I’ve winged enough, you may be surprised to hear that despite the false promises and hassle we did actually have a good time! Lexa had never been on a camel and found the experience quite exciting, particularly on the second day when she was put on ‘Rocket’ a huge and rather randy camel. Luckily she only had one uncontrolled gallop due to the over excitement about the other female camel with us. She just held on for dear life and managed to survive the ordeal just looking a little shakey and insisting on swapping with me the next day.

It was a little chilly at night but we were given loads of heavy blankets and it was lovely sleeping under the stars and drinking our overpriced beer that ‘LJ’ had flogged us insisting it was selling it at the going rate.

So it was back to Jaislemer, where Little Jonny (bless him) had not reserved us the room we requested and we took our chance to escape his evil clutches. It was a relief to get away and think that we wouldn’t have to see him again.

By a happy coincidence it was the annual Desert festival in Jaislemere, so we spent our last day watching camel polo, camel and horse races. Underneath a crystal clear blue sky it made for some beautiful scenes and some exciting moments on the touchline as a herd of rampaging camels came toward us!

Jaislemer is a beautiful, if dusty old walled city that rises up out of the desert (I’m afraid the photo’s don’t show much of the city) and if you are thick skinned or don’t encounter someone prepared to lie quite as much as ‘LJ’ then it would be a magical place to stay. We don’t regret going but, we can honestly say we were overjoyed to be leaving!

Leaving this time unfortunately meant the bus and more precisely our first encounter with a sleeper bus. All I can say is…. don’t do it!!! It is a bit like being put in a Tupperware box (with the remains of someone else’s lunch still in it), the lid shut and being shaken mercilessly for 12 hours. The photo here is just after we had transferred to a new bus that was slightly cleaner and before we had been rattling around for hours, hence we are still smiling….

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