Forts, Farting Camels and those crazy Indians!

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Got a bit to catch up on... whoops! WE've been travelling for the last few days with a Irish/American couple, Gio and Cindy who have kept us giggling constantly when things on board camels got too much, back to that in a minute. We met them on the bus from Udaipur to Jodphur and, as always, it's the near death experiences that bring people together. We had 2 crashes; one when a lorry went into the back of us, (it was resolved by our driver getting out of the bus and lamping the driver of the lorry through his window) and later on we drove into a lorry that had stopped to avoid another crash! nothing too drastic but meant we made some new friends!
Jodphur was wonderful. The huge fort rising up above the blue painted houses makes for an impressive view. We spent a day there, sampling the local speciality (deep fried chillies) and ambling around the tiny little streets that lead up to the fort (wierdly it's a bit like Santorini or some other small greek island town).
From Jodphur we caught another bus on to Jaisalmer and the desert just 20 km from the border with Pakistan. WE took a late evening bus for the 8 hour jhourney and we're hurtling along the bumpy road at crazy-miles-an-hour when the bus came to a halt in front of an over turned petrol tanker! it was completely blocking the road and from our side we could just see the underside of the lorry. As with these sorts of things everyone lept off the bus for a closer inspection. WE sent Dan to the scene to inspect and report back. He came back incredulous; the passengers and driver of the bus had unscrewed the cap on the tap at the back of the tanker and we're rushing back and forth with empty plastic bottles filling them up with petrol and pouring it into the bus's tank. They created a funnel from what lookied like a piece of the lorries exhaust and once they'd syphoned off enough petrol for the bus, they started filling up bottles and bringing them on board. Whilst all this activity was going on we were leaning out of the window of the bus in amazement, we decided to get off the bus when we noticed that there was a lot of spilt petrol between us and the tanker and some of the guys after exerting themselves carrying the petrol decided they deserved a cigarette!!!! you've never seen 4 people jump off a bus faster!!
anyway, having syphoned off as much as they could they managed to get the bus around the tanker (after deciding that getting the other petrol tanker that had come up behind us, to shunt the one lying in the road out of the way, was a bad idea!!!) we got on our way again. Reeking of petrol and with buckets of the stuff slopping around in the aisle we got back on the road to Jaisalmer.
Jaisalmer is another Fort city only this one's Golden! all the houses that are scattered beneath the fort are a golden sandstone and the fort which is still in use,(althouhg a little disney-esque with all it's tourist shops) is stunning and the sandstone carvings on the old havelis really beautiful, especially at sunset when the colour is very intense.
We spent a day wandering around doing some more shopping and making friends with shop owners who couldn't believe there luck that someone was buying something (it's low season here and very quiet - something to do with the temperature reaching mid 40s during the day... mad dogs and Englishmen!)
The thing to do in Jaisalmer is a camel safari throuhg the desert and stay over night under the stars. Believeing it was the perfect opportunity to wear the camel leather, Indiana Jones hats we had bought, the four of us booked it through our hotel and were very excited as we set off yesterday morning at 7.30am. We drove by jeep about 30km outside the city, into the desert, which isn't really desert more like sandy scrubland, but it is very remote. WE met our camels and our 2 drivers and were soon on our way. My camel was called Kalu and had a terrible mullet and Dan's was called Master but was referred to as Steve for the entire time (not sure why, but it made us laugh!) Gio's became known as Chewy cos he sounded exactly like the star wars character and was very shaggy. For the first hour as the sun was warming up and our bums were new to the saddle it was very enjoyable, the scenery was lovely and the farting camels a source of endless hilarity. We stopped for lunch about 11.30 and set up camp beneath a tree, the drivers started a camp fire and we had chai and chapatti adn dhal and the slept off the heat of the day until 3pm when we got going again. It was very very hot. Getting back on the camels was a little tough since the bum muscles were beggining to ache a little. We continued on throuhg the heat adn finally we came to where we were stopping for the night, the sand dunes (proper desert!). WE watched the sun go down over the sweeping arches of the dunes and sat round the camp fire to eat supper. We then watched the stars and fell asleep under a pile of blankets (it gets cold in them there deserts at night!).
We were woken up this morning by the sun creeping over the dunes and less romatically by the ever present noise and cabbage-y smell of the camel's farts! Chai, toast and jam and we were ready for the day ahead but getting back on that camel was the most unbearably uncomfortable experience. We rode for 3 hours trying every possible position to eleviate the sore bums and finally when nothihg else would work the four of us dismounted and bow-leggedly led our camels throuhg the desert! Pathetic, I hear you cry but it was so bad that walking throuhg the desert at midday was prefferable to riding on that camel!
Lunch and a jeep ride home found us a tired aching and sweaty bunch back at our hotel. In hindsight a hilarious 2 days but I'm never riding a camel again!

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