an air con unit, two happy bunnies and a dung beetle called Dave. AKA hotter than a camels bottom lip in a sand dune!

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We took a bus from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer which was entertaining. Imagine a super duper uk coach. Now take out the overhead luggage compartments. What we have instead of luggage is people in the overheads! They can't sit upright they can only squat or lie down. There are windows that can be opened and as usual as many people are crammed in as possible. Fortunately very fortunately we had seats. These really are death traps in the sense of the amount of people that are physically squeezed in. But suffice to say, as I'm typing this, we arrived safely in Jaisalmer. We have gone past many tiny villages, camels being used for transport and generally roaming in the desert scrubland, peacocks (at last!).

We took a little hotel outside of the walls, and the first thing we did was sit inches away from the air con unit! We were like two children watching colour tv for the first time! But the poor air con unit had an awful lot of hard work to do to cool the room down. You only had to move away to be hit by a wall of heat! But after several hours and tweeking we got somewhere near cool! I hasten to add we didn't sit there all that time. We wandered off through the little streets, full of shops and rickshaws to find an evening meal! We had a rooftop restaraunt which look towards the fort, which sadly wasn't lit up. However, all the other rooftop restaraunts are lit up and music wafts over on the warm - sorry hot - evening air. A very magical experience.

The next day saw us walking upto the fort which sits beautifully above the town. It is built from the local sandstone which is a lovely red. The fort itself is a hubub of narrow walkways full of havellis, homes and shops all vying for room, attention and business! There are temples and shrines. Cows wander the streets and are totally unfazed by us and barge you out the way. Several times we were headbutted out the way!! We climbed onto the walls at various spots and looked out towards the surrounding desert and of course over the town. There is a relatively cool wind blowing in which did bring some sort of relief from the soaring heat. We thought we were hot in Jodhpur but this really does bring a new meaning to hot.

In the late afternoon we headed off to the sand dunes of Sam to watch the sunset. We fully expected to be in a jeep but we ended up in the exact same car that brought us to Jodhpur, but this time it didn't break down!

Sam is about 30k outside of Jaisalmer and as you got closer, at strategic points there are camels and drivers all trying to get you to have a ride, which we had decided we weren't going to do. Every now and then a camel driver would just stand in the road blocking your way, trying to get you to part with your money and have a ride. When we finally stopped we were surrounded but headed off into the dunes, politely declining. One old boy followed us for an hour. The price went down, up and then down again!!

We were here to watch the sunset. Well it sort of just fizzled out! But there was an awful lot of people here doing exactly the same thing, which on the relatively small spot for sand dunes was quite a thing to see. We wandered off over the dunes, taking lots of photos and then retired to watch the sunset, the entertainment from all the westerners turning up on camels and have a cool as drink as possible in the desert!

What really made the dunes were the dung beetles, they were so funny and amazing. They fly all over the place and when the decide to come back down to earth - sorry sand! - they crash land! They then pick themselves up and start again. They beetle off (sorry for the pun!) find a piece of dung, run all over it, then with the piece of dung in their back legs and them head first on their front legs roll the piece of dung backwards for all their worth to a suitable spot. Once at the spot they furiously dig a hole and bury the dung. All the time they are fighting off other beetles all wanting that piece of dung - it's amazing.!!

Which brings me nicely onto Dave the Dung Beetle. Whilst sat having our luke cool drink, David got chatting to a local. After sometime I noticed a beetle heading between Davids legs. I started nudging him to move his feet so as he either didn't stand on the beetle, and so as he could watch him go by. The chap noticed me doing this and asked what it was called. David misheard him, and thinking he had asked him his name, replied its Dave!!! So welcome!!!

Our next day saw us heading off to Delhi and Amritsar.

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