Lawrence of Arabia aint got nothing on me...

Day 13-15, Saturday-Monday 01-03/11/08, Jaisalmer

We got up nice and early this morning (i.e. 4.30am), despite having hit a bar/club in Jodhpur the evening before to catch our train to Jaisalmer, the 'golden city'. It was my first Indian train (due to the fiasco of Delhi-Jaipur) and I had been warned it was going to be.... interesting. 'Interesting' translated as 7 hours in the sweating heat, no air-con, lying on a bunk where you can't sit up cause there isn't enough room, with your entire face covered in a scarf because the sand is flying in through the windows and getting into your eyes, your mouth... everywhere. When you get off the train you realise that all your bags, your hair, your clothes, your skin, are all covered in a thin layer of grit and sand that seems to be oddly resistant to water. Luckily, because it was so early in the morning, we all managed to sleep through part of it, but Papi has strongly recommended that whenever we travel by train in India we get an air-con apartment (there isn't one on the train to Jaisalmer, unfortunately).

Now Jaisalmer, I could have spent much longer in. Bang slap in the middle of the desert, 180km from the Pakistan border, its famous for its camel safaris, its fort, which is still lived in by hundreds of people, and its beautiful mirrorwork wall-hangings. The fort is in severe danger due to water over-use, and is sinking and collapsing into the desert at an alarming rate, so we stayed outside it in a more eco-friendly hotel. It was only a 5 min walk from everything though, which was great. We arrived there lunchtime, had a sleep, then Papi took us for an orientation walk through the old city and the fort. Jaisalmer fort is unlike that at Jodhpur or Amber, i.e. military structures open as tourist attractions; instead its like a mini town inside, full of winding alleys, little shops, cafes and endless cows. Great to lose oneself in, the beauty being that you can never *truly* lose yourself because the place is surrounded by huge walls and battlements. Later we had dinner, then met Papi's friend Om, who owns an internet cafe with a cool chill-out area above, where he hosts couch-surfers and anyone else he thinks would enjoy a beer or two.

The next morning I got up and went for an explore by myself in the fort, and went to one of the havelis the city is famous for. This one was built by a former prime minister, and was full of sneaky devices to trap and defeat attackers. In the afternoon we started our camel safari. Amazing stuff. Definitely one of the highlights so far. The LP warned that so many people do safaris from Jaisalmer that we'd be pushed to find a horizon clear of other tourists, but Papi uses a certain company that took us out by jeep past everyone else, then let us loose on the camels. Now, camels are bigger than you think. They get up hind legs first, so you almost tumble over their heads when they stand up. Imagine, those of you who are girls, what you feel like having ridden a bike with a boys saddle for a solid day. Now imagine what you would feel like if you had not been riding the bike smoothly but instead someone had been doing that thing on the see-saw where they deliberately make you bump on the seat..... for 3 hours. This is what riding a camel is like. I'd been told I should probably wear a sports bra - what I *should* have worn was a reinforced steel cage. For the first 20 mins I was like "Mother of all that is holy, what have I let myself in for?", but after that, once I had got into the swing of things and learnt how the *ride* the camel rather than just being bumped by it, I LOVED it. It's strange, I'd never been in any desert before, let alone the second largest in the world (the Thar Desert stretches from India all the way to Iran), yet I've seen so many images on television and in films that it felt strangely familiar. More than anything, especially after the roads of India, you notice the complete silence, and the complete absence of anyone else in the landscape, although we did see two gazelle leaping away and an actual, genuine, eagle sitting on a bush near us. Pretty damn awesome.

Just before sunset we stopped, and sat on a dune watching the sun go down whilst the guides assembled our tents and started cooking dinner. I've managed to see quite a few great sunsets in India, and the main thing you notice is the lack of clouds. The changing colours in the clouds *is* the sunset in England - in India, or at least, in the desert areas of India in which I've been travelling, there are no clouds, and the sun is this amazing flaming ball of gold that sinks quickly into the west. Then the sky glows for 15 mins or so, and then its dark. And *then*, and this is the part that will stay with me the most, the stars come out. I have never seen so many stars in my life. In Bristol, yeah, you can make out the major constellations, but here there were so many stars that the constellations were almost difficult to pick out. You could see the smear of the Milky Way across the entire sky, spot shooting stars occurring every couple of minutes.... I'll stop rhapsodising now at the risk of you guys thinking I'm insane, but believe me, wow. Much playing of Bear McCreary's version of 'All Along The Watchtower' commenced. All I'll say is that I wish the superpowers hadn't given up space exploration as much as they did when the Cold War collapsed. I think we're missing out. Add all that to a *yummy* meal prepared for us by the cooks, and accompanied by Papi on his shamzin (I think that's what is called, its that weird flute thing that Bill plays in Kill Bill) and it was quite a good night.

The next morning we woke up early to watch the sunrise over the dunes, again amazing, and then the others went back to bed while I pootled around over the dunes. I was playing with my ipod when Nehar, the head guide of the safari and a total dude, asked me what it was. I showed him how it worked and he immediately fell in love. Having breakfast served by Nehar whilst he's singing loudly and totally off-key to 'You Give Love A Bad Name' pretty much made the weekend. I let him keep it for the ride back, and he's going to order one from his friend in France, along with, I believe, Estelle's album (he particularly liked 'American Boy'). Apparently most groups forego the camel back the next morning and just take the jeep, but we were all up for it, so headed back across the dunes in the early morning light, with only slight complaints from bruised inner thighs. Then we got the jeep back to Jaisalmer, and me and Tanya, having cajoled the drivers, got to sit on its roof for the whole ride, which was excellent fun.

We weren't due to leave Jaisalmer til the next morning, so I spent the afternoon with Om, who burned me some CDs of Indian music, and mucked around on t'internet. In the evening, another of Papi's endless friends had invited us to the stag night of his brother's wedding. I'm terribly aware that relatives are reading this blog, so all I'll say for that night is bhang cookies, and leave you to imagine the rest for yourselves.

Day 16-18, Tuesday- Thursday 04-06/11/08, Bikaner, Mandawa, Delhi

The next morning we caught the bus to Bikaner. As before, this bus journey, well actually the entire day; was spent in a haze of tiredness and hungoverness, so it was mainly ipod and sleeping as we trawled across the endless desert. I really don't know how people manage to travel without an ipod - I'd honestly go completely mad. Songs of India so far have tended to revolve around Pink Floyd - 'Time', Fun Lovin Criminals - 'Scooby Snacks', and Globus - 'Preliator'. God knows why. Anyway, we reached Bikaner in the afternoon, and after a brief rest went to see the (in)famous rat temple there. Y'know, I thought I could hack it, I really did; but it turns out I'm a complete wimp. The people here worship rats as the reincarnation of holy bards, and the temple is swarming with them. SWARMING. Not only that, you have to remove your shoes, as its a holy place, and obviously screaming and yelling 'eurgh!' isn't really looked too kindly on. If any of you guys have been watching 'Paul Merton in India', its the same place he went in the first episode. I really tried. I could stand in the middle of the outer courtyard where there were fewer of them, and I tried going into the inner shrine three times, teetering on the doorstep and blocking the genuine pilgrims who were trying to get in, but I just couldn't do it. I did see a white rat though, which is meant to be good luck.

The next day we took another bus to Mandawa, a small village on the way back to Delhi, famous for its haveliis. Taking buses here is great in some ways, because you're such an object of facination for so many people, especially in rural areas like these. This one young couple were on the bus for about an hour and honestly did not stop staring at me for one minute in all that time. The inhabitants of the cities themselves are used to westerners, but when we were in Jodhpur fort, which is obviously a tourist attraction for Indians from other areas as well as white people, an old woman came up to exclaim over the colour of my arms and gabble away to me in Hindi, and I had my photo taken with pretty much every single member of a large Indian family up on the battlements. They even wanted me to be in their family photo. The children too! Indian children are possibly the cutest in the world - they have these huge brown eyes which just look awe-struck into yours. Its really sad because so many of the children here are taught from their earliest years to beg from strangers, but I've discovered that even if you don't want to give them money, that doesn't mean you can't still joke around with them the same way that you would with children at home. Its great.

Mandawa, as I've said, is only a small village, and, like Bikaner, there is not masses to see here (these last days have been more like places to break the journey back to Delhi rather than sights in their own right), but it was interesting to see a small rural village in comparison to the cities we'd been in so far. Mainly what I noticed was that they were far dirtier and run-down, with no proper rubbish dumps etc, although I must admit that Mandawa had far fewer car horns! It is famous for its haveliis though, which are singular in that they are decorated with these incredibly intricate frescos painted by the local people in the 18th century. Papi hired a guide to take us around people's houses and have a look at some of the better examples, though we got entangled with a large group of German people and I felt like a big bad tourist traipsing around these people's houses. The saddest thing was how much the frescos are crumbling away due to lack of any funds or interest in restoring them. There were some hilarious pictures of 18th century British people amongst the representations of Hindu gods and battle scenes however, mainly wreathed in smoke and wearing black. In one place there was even an image of the Wright brothers in the aeroplane. It was almost like ancient cave paintings, where people painted records of the things they had seen. The evening was spent listening to loud trance music and drinking beer in the courtyard of the hotel. Never mind the fact that there were other people in the hotel who wanted to sleep, Papi does what Papi wants. He's an arrogant sonofabitch, he really is, but I'm not complaining!

Finally, yesterday we headed on the loooong drive to Delhi. When I say long, I mean, left at 10am, arrived in Delhi at 7pm. Thankfully though, we were in an extremely plush private minibus, and Papi forgoed (is foregoed a word? forewent?) the reggae for once to play an excellent selection of led zep, the doors, the who, pink floyd and hendrix, so I was happy. Its amazing how used I've become to insanely long journeys - in England something of that duration would drive everyone in the car to homocide, here you learn to relax, enjoy the scenery, and chill out. Still, I'm glad that I'm flying to Kerela tomorrow. 9 hours in a private car is one thing. 48 hours on a train is quite another...

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Part of trip: Backpacking around India and Nepal

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