Mutilating, Manipulating, Nefarious India

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We started our morning at Krishna Guesthouse with a breakfast of four pieces of white toast, one chapatee, butter, lovely jam, and coffee that I could not drink due to some spices in it. Just a matter of taste though, not bad coffee. I wasn't impressed with breakfast, but overall, our stay at Krishna was good and a good price I think for all that was included (2400Rs for two people).

After breakfast we packed up and drove the 40km to Jaisalmer. Hardev suggested we use a guide and given the size of the old city, we agreed. It is the best way to cover a lot of ground in a day. He introduced us to Padem and he seemed knowledgeable and spoke excellent English, so we hired him for the day not knowing how much he would charge. Most of them just say, 'As you wish' anyway. Padem appeared to be pretty educated and he did a great job of explaining the Hindu religion.

First he took us to the lake which is pretty famous in Jaisalmer. It is surrounded by gorgeous, hand-carved, sandstone buildings. Everything is made from this yellow sandstone and Jaisalmer is called the Golden City as a result. Unfortunately, the lake was also surrounded by rubbish. I just don't get it. How can people not see that? How can they not care? This is a major tourist site. Why doesn't the government clean it up and educate the people about not throwing rubbish in the lake? I will never understand. I couldn't resist asking Padem about this and he said lack of education, but it was clear to me that he didn't care either. Didn't bother him in the least. Indian tourists were feeding white bread (?) to the catfish in the lake and when the bread was finished, they would just throw the plastic bag it came in in the water as well to watch the fish eat that! One French man was trying to stop them explaining that the plastic would kill the fish and everyone just looked at him like he had two heads. And he was speaking in English. The tourists were in as much of a frenzy as the catfish.

Next, Hardev drove all of us to the edge of the old city and we began our tour of the Jain temples. Wow. Inside the Old City there are many Jain (an offshoot of Hinduism) temples and we visited five within just a few steps of each other. The area around the temples was kept clean, but I was wearing socks today. The Jain temples are ornately carved and really beautiful inside. Most are marble or sandstone in this particular city. Inside is really peaceful, even where there are a lot of people inside, until some 'holy man' comes up to you and points at his bowl and says, 'Madam, madam,' and wants you to make a donation - to him, not the temple - in the bowl. Padem already warned us not to give them money because most are not monks. And every temple had a big metal box that was locked and said, 'Do not give money to holy men. If you wish to make a donation, please put it in this box.' Those Jain temples looked like they enough money coming in, so we didn't make any donations.

After viewing the Jain temples we walked around the city for a bit and Padem explained a bit of the history of Hinduism while we had chai on the rooftop of the Free Tibet cafe which is in Lonely Planet. Afterwards we wandered around a bit more in the city, bought some gorgeous shoes, and then we went for lunch at KB Cafe, which is NOT in Lonely Planet, but should be. I had a pot of excellent filter coffee and a masal thali. Masala means spicy. Thali is basically a selection of various dishes with bread or rice to eat with them. Excellent. There was a misunderstanding over the bill. Or was there? We were charged double for our thali, but it was the restaurants mistake in serving us 4 dishes instead of 3, and we felt Padem should've dealt with this, but he didn't. After Annette and I pushed a bit, we were charged the correct amount. I think someone was trying to manipulate us so they could put a bit of extra money in their pocket...

But it was delicious. After lunch we wandered around to see some havelis, but we'd already seen so many that we just went inside one that was free. It used to the be the residence of the former prime minister (mayor) of Jaisalmer, but is now basically a gift shop. After seeing so many havelis, we didn't feel the need to spend any more time on them. We did a bit more shopping and Annette bought some silver jewelry and I looked at a particular style of textile I was interested in - a camel blanket/decoration with an usual shape to fit the camel. But the guy wanted 15000Rs for it! He thought I was a rich, stupid, white woman. I laughed at him and walked out with him begging me to name my price. I said, 'You think I am stupid. I wouldn't take that textile if you paid me for it.' Those camel decorations run about 3000Rs or less, even if they are old, and this one was, but it was in good condition. Newer ones are even less than the old ones.

We had a good day walking through the city, but Padem never mentioned seeing the Palace and I forgot there was a palace inside the city walls. I think he didn't want us to spend our time in the palace because he wouldn't be allowed to go in. That bugged me a little bit. He basically took us shopping and I am sure he made a commission on everything we bought. I'm not bothered by the commission, but I am bothered that he took advantage of us. In my opinion. I should have read my book a bit more before we got there.

In the afternoon we met Hardev and he took Padem and Annette to a hair salon (disaster!) and took me to our hotel, which was one of the best of our trip - Jeet Villa. I found it on airbnb.com and it was just 24 USD a night for two people. It is new, lots of sandstone, beautiful, clean rooms and bathrooms, big rooms, and it had a flat screen TV and air con, but we didn't use either one. It is on the outskirts of town, so it was quiet at night. We had a great hot shower also. But like all the hotels we stayed in, we could hear everything through the plumbing. In the middle of the night, the couple in the room next door got violently ill. Delhi Belly. Woke us both up and I felt so sorry for them. They couldn't leave the next day as planned. The staff at the hotel helped them as best they could. At least they had a nice, inexpensive place to recover.

After Annette came back from the salon and told me and showed me how the hairdresser mutilated her hair (OMG!) we went to dinner at Saffron, which is also in Lonely Planet. It sounds better than it is. It was just average in my opinion, but they did serve beer. After dinner it was quite late, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Another long drive tomorrow. Off to Jodhpur.

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Photos

Gadi Sagar
Lake near Jaisalmer

In the Lake
This structure wasn't always under water.

Tilon-ki-Pol
Built by a prostitute with a Krishna temple on top so the maharawal at the time couldn't tear it down for being built by a prostitute. Smart woman.

Hindu Cemetary
Hindu monks are buried standing up. Just a fun fact for you.

Jaisalmer Fort
from a busy street below.

Jaisalmer Streets
ouside the Old City

Entering Jaisalmer Fort
Forts were actually entire communities including a palace for the ruling family, havelis, shops, temples. Everything they needed was inside the walls of the fort.

Jain god
always white, always with rounded eyes, not flat eyes like Buddha.

Looking Down
in a Jain Temple. Jain is an offshoot of Hinduism.

Jain god
There are many Jain gods. I don't know which one this is.

The Infamous Metal Box
in all the temples.