Camping in the Desert

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Hello

We took the tour bus to Jaisalmer. We took a walking tour of the city and went to the Holy lake where a prostitute had built a palace down by the lake for herself. Crazy, this was hundreds of years ago, and I guess she was really rich.. the royalty didn't like it and ordered it destroyed, but no one would. We wandered around the old city and saw some really old huge beautiful homes. We then went to Amber Fort. This fort was really different as about 4000 people still live in it. There are hotels, restaurants, shops, tons of people, it was really cool to see a fort in a different way. The city is all built from yellow rock and it looks gold especially from the fort when you look down onto the old city. We then went into a Jain Temple. It was amazing.. all the marble columns are intricately carved and the whole temple was just stunning.

We then went out into the desert and took camels to a camp in the midde of nowhere (ya right, you could see the highway from the tents, haha). The camel ride was Ok, took about 2 hours to get to our "camp". I have never camped this way in my life. Every tent had a seperate bathroom with running water and a flush toilet, electricity, a double bed, it was great. There was a bar and we all agreed to pay for the cultural show that ended up being more like a gay caberet show, as the dancers were all men.. haha, but it was fun. We watched the sunset with about 5000 other tourists then ended up staying up all night, just talking and drinking and watched an amazing sunrise in the desert out on the dunes. It was fantastic.

Just wandering the streets of Jaisalmer was so great. The streets are narrow and windy and full of people and livestock. The colours here are amazing. The women always look so fantastic in their clothing and its all so beautiful. Its a crazy contrast when you also see the open sewers, the garbage, the pollution. I have never been anywhere in the world that can compare to India.

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