13 December : Khuri and Jaisalmer

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Khuri - Camel Safari

Day 5 of Rajasthan Tour

This place is in the desert and an area that is not so touristy for camel safaris, like the Sam area. We paid NZ$80.00 each for a night in the desert, camel ride to sunset, dinner, night under the stars, breakfast and camel ride to sunrise. We arrived and were shown to a hut, although we also had the option of sleeping under the stars. Well I could not believe the hut, it was circular, thatched roof with material tent ceiling, cold grey concrete walls and floor. We had the ensuite (some were not so lucky), rusty tin door into a room with western toilet but no seat, small dirty basin and cold shower, all on a dirty concrete floor. This place was not clean. Thank god for the silk sheets. But there was light and you could flush your toilet paper down the loo and we are sleeping outside under the stars anyway.

Then 2 boys (11 &15) took us for a camel ride leaving at 3 and returning at 7 during which time we watched the sunset from the top of a sand dune with only a dozen or so other tourists. Sprinkled through the desert are villages which consist of huts made out of stone bricks cemented together by a mix of dirt and cow dung (or as our driver says “cow toilet”). They cut the stone out of their hills. They then smooth the cow dung mix onto the inside and outside of the walls to hide the stone and give it is smooth texture, they also cover the outside area with it so it is hard. Hey it does not smell they say. They use dry cow dung as fire fuel too. Just who is the poor bugger that gets to collect this stuff! The roof is straw stuff, and the inside ceiling is large branches. They build a fence around their hut and make a front outside area including a lean-to they use as a kitchen area covered by sacking or plastic held up by branches. They have little money, water or facilities. Their clothes are dirty; some kids look like their hair has never been washed. They do not go to school and learn their English and French from foreign tourists. Their parents work as camel drivers and wives embroider textiles. I bought an Indian cotton top with long sleeves of them (finally I could stop wearing the shawls) for NZ$10 - same as the ones I got in town for NZ$3 the next day.

Naïvely we thought desert - hot. But no, desert hot during day, but desert bloody cold at night, cold enough to opt to sleep in that hut. We rode back to a fabulous meal around what was supposed to be a campfire - instead of logs they used twigs, it was so small and a waste of time. We paid like NZ$160.00 for one night I thought that would have paid for an entire logging truck in India. After a freezing night which I thought was because of the desert cold, but no, Carl had all the blankets, we trekked for a couple of hours and watched the sunrise from the sand dune. We had bread that looked like it had past by the fire at 100 mph but was called toast. We tipped the camel drivers, musicians, cook and waiter and left. We are not sure why they needed $160.00 for our stay, Lonely Plant quoted prices for overnight safaris for like NZ$20.00. It was not for the drivers benefit, he slept outside on a rack in the freezing cold with one blanket! Our fault we did not do the research, but would be interested in what others had to pay and what they got to see how it rated before I judge or name the place. We have noticed though that you can pay up to like $250. We saw one lady fall off her camel (not from our camp) right in front of us and the drivers told us that the camel was only 3 and too young to be carrying tourists as it had not been trained enough. Whereas our camels were like 7 and 11, so you also pay for that trust.

But still it was a magical experience, and the hosts were all extremely nice, we had reliable camels, the food was great, and back home I would have paid hundreds for the same experience, so cannot complain. It was like we had to pinch ourselves, we were riding on a camel in the Indian desert - WOW!

Jaisalmer

Day 6 & 7 of Rajasthan Tour.

We were pleasantly surprised; this place is like 150 km from the Pakistan border so you hear jet fighter planes flying over all the time, it is quite exciting. But there is no fighting at the moment. There are 80,000 people here, and 70% live off tourists, so it is very touristy and as such the rubbish is collected and improved sewage systems. It is touristy because there is this amazing fort which straddles the hill across the top of the town and also this place is the base for most of the camel safaris. The fort is a village in itself, people still live in the houses, the small alleyways are lined with stalls selling to the tourists, more haveli, a palace, 8 temples, hotels and restaurants. The fort was originally built in the 1100’s so obviously it is crumbling in places, so they recommend that you do not support the services inside the fort, e.g. hotels, restaurants, shops as tourism is speeding up the process. It is more impressive on the outside than inside. Jaisalmer is a cleaner town, still have streets filled with cows and dogs, but most of these streets are tar sealed with sand footpaths.

Our days were spent more fort, more temple…… we did visit the ruins of a village that was the town before they built Jaisalmer in 1100 that was quite interesting, in that the broken bricks were so old and some memorial monuments of important people that died hundreds of years ago, but nothing to write home about. The fort is really the only sight to see. But we spent most of both afternoons by ourselves wandering around the stalls and shops and on the internet trying to source some accommodation for the weeks ahead. Plus trying to find deodorant, some of the simple things are really hard to find in India, they don’t use it.

Accommodation Review

Our driver had recommended Raj Palace as where his clients within our price range normally stay, but it was horrible, dark, wet, dirty, damp, so he took us to another one which was very new, The Imperial. On first look it was modern and looked fine, but after we signed in and took a closer look, it was new but it looked like nothing had been cleaned since it was installed. The bath still had the “handle with care” sticky tape along the side, I could write CLEAN ME with the janola wipes on the inside of the bath, it was so grubby. The bed had a dirty bottom sheet and no top sheet just blankets that had hairs, food and unquestionable other marks. Thank god for the silk sheets. Worse, the bed was as hard as a brick which seems to be normal around here, Carl wakes up with sore ribs after a nights sleep. I have included a picture of the driveway entrance to the Hotel, it seems to be an area where animals spend the night, so we had dogs barking all bloody night. Also with a room right next to the foyer its too nosey. We normally always make sure our room is at least on the 2nd floor, the foyer noise drifts and can go 24 hours.

We decided that India’s grubby hotel room problems could be improved with the employment of women. We ask the driver “no women working in the hotel - all men?” - “No, no, women don’t work in hotel, they would have worked in the construction of hotel”! And he is right whenever we see woman working its roadside, construction, mines, carrying wood, water or food on their heads, doing the heavy work, or some do embroidery. This is in the poorer regions, other regions I am not sure they work at all. You never see woman in shops, hotels, restaurants, etc. These are all run by men. In the villages they marry at like 15, live at home with their parents until 18 when they move in with their husband, then have children. Although this is in these parts that we have visited, the more traditional regions, the cities are more modern, but yet on the news the other day they had a young girl who had just won a case to be the first female to work behind a bar in Delhi.

Driver Update

As above not sure of Safari price, but as our driver said, they are good reliable people who have very little money and the area has very few tourists. And they were good hosts, there were hardly any people around and we did get like 5-6 hours on a camel. He has not put us wrong yet and I am updating this 11 days into our 24 day trip. Driver chose Raj Palace in Jaisalmer but he and we had heard from someone who had stayed on the camel safari that it was the pits. So we looked, and confirmed it was the pits. So driver suggested Imperial which was new (he had not had guests stay as yet) and as above you have read about that. They say that they rent hotels so management and therefore quality, can change easily in a year. But no pressure from the driver to stay, if we don’t like, he takes us to another which he did, and we only stay if we say yes. But in hindsight we should have picked one out of the Lonely Planet, we were a bit slow, neither of these were in the book. He has only arranged 2 guides so far to take around towns, 1 Mandawa and 1 for the Jaisalmer fort, so its not like a guide everyday like we suspiciously though at first. We have had no hidden costs and the driver has been excellent, he always asks if we want to go into tourists shops, he does not care if we don’t buy “you decide, no buy, no problem”.

We met a Swiss guy on the safari and he has paid 5000 rupees (NZ$170) per day for his driver, entrance fees and accommodation. We paid 1800 per day but on top of that we have to pay for entrance fees (300 rupees) and accommodation (1000 rupees). So he is like paying 2000 rupees extra than us a day and he is getting exactly the same as us, staying in the same hotels. 2000 rupees in India is a lot of money. He is so pissed off. Apparently his driver keeps going on about how poor he is and how little he gets paid and how many family members he has to support. Our driver does nothing like this at all. He is very proud of his good service.

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Photos

Camel Safari
Scarf, not cos cold, but camel has very bad breath.

Camel
Sun shines out of camels ?

Street in Fort
Norma sight in Rajasthan the cows in the streets

Fort
Behind the mist

Imperial Hotel Bath
Still had the handle with care sticker on it!

Memorial
Some died like over 500 years ago

The old and the new
technology in the background