desert forts & safaris

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days 110-117ish

We had a whistlestop tour of Jodhpur, en route to the desert in Western Rajasthan. An imposing red sandstone fort stands above a blue-painted city. The indigo paint of the houses apparently helps heat control and prevents ants etc. crawling all over the walls. We followed an informative, interesting and amusing audio tour around the fort. This hi-tech (the most modern museum we've come across) guide prevented us from wandering aimlessly and kept our minds focussed -especially because we had to complete the tour before closing time. Admittedly this race to finish in time added to the fun.

That evening, we took a sleeper train to Jaisalmer, another fort town, on the edge of the Thar desert. Here the fort is yellow sandstone and much of the old town is within the fort's walls. Known as the 'golden town', walking through its streets is like stepping back in time. Needless to say it is now full of hotels and shops, which have made ingenious use of the old buildings and spaces they occupy within the fort walls. The palace within the fort is similar in many ways to Jodhpur's: courtyards, latticed windows and even an audio tour (only 4 mths old).

Jodhpur is dry, Jaisalmer is drier. Apparently, it is not uncommon for a child not to see rain until he is 7 years old. This year, however, Jaisalmer had received its heaviest rains in 57 years - 18 days straight. Surrounding villages had suffered flooding, several people died and one entire village had to be relocated. We pedalloed a blue swan boat on the town's 'tank' - an artificial lake - between trees and buildings that were still submerged under a few feet of water.

From Jaisalmer we went on a 4 day camel safari. Not much to report as the trip was extremely chilled. 'Shanti, shanti' was the motto of our camel driver, Raman, along with 'No hurry, no worry, no chicken, no curry'. However, we can confirm that: a) riding camels results in rather sore rumps (and other parts for boys); b) the night sky in the desert is awesome, and should be slept under more often; c) sand gets everywhere. On our return to Jaisalmer, we were woken sharply from our deserty daze. We had to pack, shower and make it to the train within 60mins.

We got off the train the next morning in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. There were yet more palaces and forts to see, but given we'd seen lots already, we opted for an alternative tourist experience: a bit of shopping and a trip to the biggest, pinkest blamange-like cinema ever, to see a Bollywood film (well 1hr of it). We did make it to the city's Jantar Mantar, a garden filled with arty-looking sculptures, which are in fact the most accurate instruments for measuring time and the positions of constellations. We learnt a little from our guide, but for the most part felt astronomically challenged - it's all very complicated. Dan did learn though, that his 'planet' is the moon, and like the moon's path, (ominously) life would be very 'up and down'....

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