(8) Dreaming Of Dunes. ( I should probably start trying to keep up)

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We sat at the main bus stand in Udaipur waiting for our bus to arrive and take us on a 9 hour journey to Jaisalmer via Jodhpur. As we waited on a cold metal bench straddling our backpacks we observed our surroundings: Some modded rickshaws with neon lights and huge speakers blared around the roundabout and past our bench, a stray dog craved some attention which was given to it by a large Indian gentleman sitting on a bench across from us, some begging children asked for chapatti, schoolpens and baksheesh (tip), and people seemed to keep coming and going as we waited.

After 30 mins of waiting someone behind the counter of the company we booked with asked us for our ticket which we gave and it seemed to vanish worryingly into a black hole for 15 minutes. After waiting around, chatting to other travellers and letting the stray dog nuzzle into Simons backpack to sleep we got up to join all the other travellers that had got up and headed for our bus which had arrived 30 mins later than it should’ve. As we walked towards it, we were handed our ticket and told that that wasn’t our bus, “what?” I asked, “you mean, that bus over there, heading to Jaisalmer via Jodhpur, with your company name plastered all over it, and all the travellers heading towards it, arriving at the time we were told our bus was meant to arrive is in fact, NOT, our bus?”
He was sure that it wasn’t our bus and we sat back down defeated after we were told ours would be another 20 minutes. The dog returned to the comfort of the hip straps on Simon’s backpack and went back to sleep.

When our bus finally appeared, another 30 confused minutes later, we were relieved to say the least by the multiple bus stunt they were pulling but it all worked out in the end we thought as we lugged our backpacks into our sleeper compartment prepared for an easy night’s sleep on the road after watching India’s evening darken and pass by on its many roads.

The Fake sound of progress by Lostprophets is an awesome soundtrack to rickety Indian roads at breakneck speeds surrounded by elegant silhouettes and thousands of pin-prick stars. As the cold black air rushed into our little cabin (2x1 metre) we stuck our heads out the windows to catch a panoramic view of the Indian countryside at night, only to duck them back in to avoid losing them to a passing truck. After 2 hours of night made the air colder we gave up on watching the countryside pass by and decided to sleep. Error. Just after we’d both agreed sleeper carriages were awesome we realised that they were in fact, not. Calling them sleeper compartments is like calling an Indian rickshaw driver an honest guy, it’s an absolute joke, every 3 minutes or so of slowly dozing off was interrupted by a large jolt caused by a speed bump resulting in us being flung into the air, narrowly missing the ceiling as the bus crashed over rough and pointless speed bumps in the road.

Try as we might, there was no sleeping, whenever we tried to change the positions of our backpacks, a speed bump would send us flying into the ceiling, it certainly didn’t help that we were directly above the back right wheel of the bus and that the bus had little to no suspension.

As we watched the Indian northwest pass by, tired by our lack of sleep, we noticed that the foliage got thinner and less tropical tending towards scrubland. This continued after our bus change at 5am in lovely Jodhpur when we happily exited our sleeper carriage for the want of seats on our Jodhpur - Jaisalmer bus, and entered our bus that had been waiting for us for about 30 minutes. Funnily enough, it was the same bus we were told wasn’t our bus in Udaipur, please just put us on that effing bus next time? Is that too much to ask?

The Jodhpur to Jaisalmer leg of the journey was horrible for me as I leant against the window trying to sleep, the cold, bumps and constant stops keeping me awake. On the stop before Jaisalmer a small kid hopped on the bus and began to work his way around the foreigners on the bus, telling us all not to get any rickshaws when you get mobbed by them as you leave the bus and instead to get a free jeep which he told us that it took us directly to where we wanted to go so we were happy.

Sure enough, when we left the bus, the rickshaw drivers mobbed us, slurring different sentences containing prices and hotel names ending with ‘sir’ or ‘friend’. As we loaded our bags and selves into the jeep, we found we were sitting across from an English couple who also seemed pretty happy with the current situation. The jeep dropped us off just inside the fort and the little kid and us hopped in a rickshaw to take a look at the little kids hostel (we got a free jeep ride from him, we might as well humour him) he told us it had very good rooftop views and balconies, a good rooftop restaurant, hot showers and all that for 150Rs. Bollocks, the views were crap, the rooms were shaggy, the building looked like it was about to fall apart, I was fairly sure there was no one else in the hotel and the restaurant looked like it might’ve served the native chipmunks and rats, but not people, so we left with some unhappy people in our wake. We headed out the fort to a hostel with a stunning view of the fort’s many bastions and a main market junction and we bartered them to give us a quad room with separate double beds and a balcony for the same price as a double as they were pretty deserted. We were happy.

I fell onto the bed and I was probably asleep before I hit the colourful but worn sheets and blankets. We’d left Udaipur at 10pm and arrived in Jaisalmer at just past 10am. I hadn’t got more than half an hour of good sleep and it was nice to be on a mattress that wouldn’t fling me into the ceiling every 3 minutes.

When we woke, we booked our 3-day camel safari with a company recommended to us by the oz girls we’d met in Mumbai, when we told them that was the reason we chose them they swiftly pulled out their feedback book and flicked some pages through until they pointed at an entry, sure enough, by Simone. The company was called trotters and was managed by Del Boy which we thought fairly comical. It was to cost us 10quid a day for 3 days and we were to meet them tomorrow at 6:45am.

After sorting our life out for the next 3 days we sat down at a deserted restaurant (no one eats at 4pm apparently in Jaisalmer) and were approached by a 10 year old kid who spoke absolutely no English but admirably attempted to wait us. We attempted to point and make gestures with our hands but he just smiled and shook his head, willing for us to try again, he eventually walked off when we thought he’d sussed that we wanted 2 veg thalis. 10 minutes later his English speaking brother appeared and actually took our order. Part of me actually wanted the completely wrong dish that kid probably thought we wanted. We could see 7 or 8 of the 99 Bastions of the huge honey-coloured Jaisalmer fort reflecting sunlight back at us, it looked pretty damn cool, coolest fort we’d seen so far we thought.

When our thali arrived without any cutlery, he informed us that he had cooked it all from the heart and hoped we enjoyed it, we politely pointed out that there was no cutlery and he laughed and started into the long story of how he’d managed to forget to bring the cutlery when he’d brought the food even though he knew exactly where they were and everything. It was a very good story but we hadn’t eaten properly for more than 16 hours and there was fantastic smelling food in front of us, long and good stories become tiring and boring when you can’t eat until they end. The food was great and in the end our waiter’s friend came up and started talking to us in a friendly manner, as many do before they reveal their hidden motive for doing so. We finished our thalis, gave our best congratulations for the food (which was superb) to the chef/ waiter and decided to humour the guy until we found out his motive for talking to us. The motive wasn’t money or to take us to a shop or take commission from a camel safari company he recommended as we originally guessed, instead the motive was to brag about how many European girlfriends he’d had (8 if you were wondering) and how many Indian girlfriends he had (6, again, if you were wondering) in different Indian cities. The proud, self-proclaimed sex god offered to smoke a joint with us which we politely declined. He eventually left us to the contentment of looking at this stunning fort and not being exhaustingly tired on a nauseatingly rickety bus.

We were out of cash and headed into the market streets surrounding the imposing fort. Indian people can’t queue, at all, people push in front of you in the line we tried to make orderly outside the atm, then proceed to let you past when it’s your turn but they’re closer. There was a group of 5 or 6 men swarming around the atm like hyenas would around a fresh carcass, it’s like they’re hungry but they have to wait until the pack leader has their fill until they can eat. I don’t get how the English left this country without leaving the knowledge of how to queue behind them.

After a fun atm experience we decided we needed hats for the desert safari so we headed into the steep incline that leads you up and into the fort. We bought some colourful Indian wares from a nice and friendly shopkeeper including a desert scarf instead of a hat, a few trousers and a few shirts ready for the desert. I was ready to barter down the total price for 10 or so items down from 1100 to 800 when he actually bartered himself down to 860. With an extra 60 Rupees knocked off we were ready for the desert.

The fort looks beautifully sculpted, huge and intimidating from the outside, but when you work your way past the entrance and into the alleys around the hub of the inner fort marketplace you realise that the fort isn’t well kept at all. It’s deteriorating, dirty and poorly maintained, the only beautiful thing about the inside of the fort is the stunning sunset, for the first time mist didn’t obscure the view of the sun and we watched that little red glint before it disappears behind the horizon. Back home we never just watch the sun set, it’s probably just as stunning in some places in England. The scenery was accompanied by a kingfisher bottle and the friendly owner of the slab of dirt on a fort he called a restaurant (which only served beer from the fridge in his house underneath us). We slept well that night dreaming of Camels and sand dunes.

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Comments

[Dad]

Excellent - although a little late :-)
So glad you posted this! I really enjoyed reading the latest step of the adventures.