Forts, Camels, Sand and Bruises

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I didn't get much sleep on the bus from Udaipur to Jodphur, but what's new! I only stayed in Jodphur a day as it's much more of a 'city' than Udaipur with all the crowding, noise, higher prices, and other hassles that come with it. All I really wanted to see here was the fort so I checked into a cheap hotel and deciding to go early as it was already really quite hot (heading eastwards into the Thar desert now) trekked (this is the right word, it was damn steep) up the hill to mighty Meherangarh fort which occupies the crown. The fort is an impressive sight even from the town, towering over everything with it's huge battlements still bristling with canons. The first gate is still pockmarked with canon ball scars and the fort is rightl;y proud of it's reputation of never having been stormed. If any of you watched the old Sharpe series on TV, it was used in one of those episodes, the huge red one! It also had a good audio tour though again the entrance fee was exorbitant! Like Udaipur's palaces the inside of the fort had the usual array of glittering royal quarters decked out in marble, silver, gold and coloured glass; but, for me at least, the best experience was just to wander the ramparts gazing down at the city glimmering a dusty blue (most of Jodphur's houses are painted blue, colour of ther brahmin caste but used by everyone here it seems) far far below.

Jaialmer was then only a smooth 5 hour bus ride through the desert the following day. Although the fort here is much smaller and not so impressive, I actually prefer it. It's not a museum, people still live there even if most of the sandstone havelis are now guest houses. The fort iotelf sits atop a hill made of soft golden sandstone, appearing to rise like a sandcastle out of the desert scrub whipped by the, surprisingly strong, desert winds - not that I'm complaining as it's still uncomfortably hot most of the time. It's great to just ramble through the smooth narrow golden cobbled streets taking everything in away from the traffic of the town but still with the activity of daily life about you, unlike in Meherengarh. I arrived shortly after lunch and, before dinner, had already booked myself onto a 3 and a half day camel trek - not bad work eh?

The camel trek was amazing, one of my best, if most uncomfortable, experiences in India. Most of the desert here is scrubland interrupted by huge dunes in places. For the first day our group trekked through the scrub, stopping at a small arae populated by thorny buhes and trees giving shade for lunch. It was here that I had my lowest point in India. Following a typical Indian lunch (chai, chapthi, veg curry) cooked up by our guides on open fires I lay down to relax, like my fellow camel trekkers. Unlike them, however, I was quickly swarmed by bees whose number continued to grow for the rest of our mid-day siesta. They weren't stinging me but were just all over me for no reason anyone could work out; i washed off my sun cream, applied deet, sat with our guides by the fire to smoke them off me... nothing worked - I was crawling with them and I spent most of the 2/3 hours 'rest' moving about in the heat trying to escape them. Getting back on the camel couldn't come soon enough! I was knackered by the time we reached the dunes where we were camping that night. This was the most magical night I can remember fopr quite some time, as the cooler evening developed and I could take off my (brand spanking new) turban we all relaxed and wandered about the dunes as our guides cooked up chai and dinner and the camels lazed about. We sat and watched the sunset before eating together then listened to our guides sing their village songs as we watched the stars come out. The sky in the desert is unbelievable, in the day it can be almost white but at night I've never seen anythin so clear, we traced 3 shooting stars in the first hour alone! Even more astounding than the sky, the stars, or the heat, though, is the silence. Never can I remember having been somewhere so quiet. There's not even the sound of crickets or other insects in the dunes - just pure silence, the absolute abscenec of any noise whatsoever, punctuated at times by the wind which sound slike waves crashing on a fairly distant shore. It's so different to the rainforest, if I stopped in Belize when we were trekking there were the sounds of life everywhere, it was so loud; a rushing stream, the call of a howler monkey, the breaking of branches by an unseen creature, the song of a bird. The desert couldn't be more different.

The next day most of ouur group left having only booked a one night safari, leaving just me and Antso the Italian behind with Tennessee our guide. I must admit that by lunch time my arse was questioning who'd made the right choice, them or Antso and me! I think my arse will still be purple when I fly home. Around lunch time the winds really picked up and we were caught in a bit of a sandstorm so we holed up in an unused little mudhouse on the outskirts of a village Tennessee knew. It was quite awesome watching the sand and winds whipping all outisde whilst we sheltered in our new home as Tennesse busied himself with the fire and lunch. Unfortunately my camera took a battering from the sand and is no longer working but at least I'm near the end of my trip now. The second night I we stayed off the dunes in case the wind picked up again (on the first night with just moderate winds I'd woken to find a layer of sand covering my and everything else!). Sand was already everywhere; our eyes, ears, mouth, nose, bags, you name it it was there, and we had no wish to be burried alive! Plus it was nice to eat with (almost) no sand in our food!

I've spent another day wandering around Jaisalmer, the golden fort with it's 99 bastions, and it really is a superb place. It really feels more like something out of the romantic image we keep in our heads of ancient Arabia, gleaming in the desert sun and swirling sands, than the India I know... though the touts here are as tenacious as ever! Tonight I've got a bus to Pushkar which I've been told to expect has much the same vibe as Udaipur.

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