Jaisalmer has been one of our favorite places so far! The only downfall is...that it's located in the middle of the desert. The people and the city were awesome, small cobblestone streets, sandstone buildings and a smaller city compared to Delhi and Jodhpur. The temperature was ranging from 35 - 40 degrees during the day. For fun, we timed how long it would take for us to be completely soaking in our own sweat...it came down to anywhere between 15 - 30 minutes depending on how much sun was out. Ugh.
Our first day we ventured out to the Jaisalmer fort, a huge structure with 25% of the city living within the fort walls. Unfortunately the fort is slowing sinking. When it was built it wasn't intended to support the number of people and the amount of water that its' currently pumping through. They encouraged travellers to stay outside the fort, so we hunkered down at the Shahi Palace, a wonderful guesthouse with a great rooftop restaurant that had a view of the fort lit up at night. Vanessa had her henna done (finally!) by 'Bobby's Henna House' on her foot and leg (looks like a lotus flower and peacock meaning love, luck and life) and we bought a tablecloth from Bobby. All the proceeds go towards the village women in the surrounding areas, as they usually don't make an income and if they're married to a loser husband, it can create some dire circumstances.
In the villages, girls are married as young as 7 - 14. When you hit 14, you're an old maid. The roles are also very traditional, women stay at home as housewives to take care of the home and children. You rarely see a women working anywhere outside of selling food at the markets. Everything else is run by men. The women that do break out of the traditional roles, from what Bobby was saying, get harassed by the men in the area. This isn't necessarily the case in larger cities like Delhi. How lucky we are to live where we do.
We booked ourselves in for a sunset camel trek from 3pm - 11pm. A jeep takes you out to three different stops before the trek, so we visited the royal centotaphs (where they cremate the maharaja's bodies and build crazy monuments in the middle of nowhere), a Jain temple, a village of local people (literally in the middle of nowhere that supported 50 families and we were told the water well was really close at a distance of only 1km away) and a swimming hole. Needless to say we were skeptical about the swimming hole in the desert, given the whole bacteria and crocodile factors but supposedly it was the cleanest water in the area and there were no crocs. After spending two hours in a hot Jeep with the windows rolled down, Jack fully jumped in while Vanessa wadded in and dunked her head. So worth it!
When we saw our camels, we decided to name Jack's camel 'John' and Vanessa's camel 'Maria'. Unfortunately Maria turned out to be a male, so we had to revert to 'Mario' instead. The trek was surreal, walking through the scrub of the desert and into the hills and sand dunes. John and Mario had some flea problems, and proceeded to brush up against anything (cactus, old tree, weeds) that would relieve their discomfort. We quickly found out Jack's camel, John, was the rogue camel as he kept rubbing up against Mario. At the last bit of the trek, the rope broke that was bidding our two camels together and John smelt freedom. Jack on the other hand, decided his life was worth more than being on a crazy camel that was going to tear into the desert, and jumped 8 feet to the ground into the sand dune. Luckily, no dislocated knees. It was awesome doing the treking, after an hour on a camel though, you're done. Its pretty uncomfortable as your feet dangle (no stirrups) and there's not a whole lot to hold onto.
We had our dinner cooked over a camp fire on a sand dune, the meal was great and consisted of a potato curry, with pakora, chapatis, rice, a spicy curry and two Kingfischers. Our real treat was a beautiful sunset of pink and purple hues and then a red lightening storm which lasted an hour over the desert. No thunder or rain though. The real adventure began on our road back to the town. It hadn't rained where we were on the dunes, but the rest of the area got hit hard with the monsoon rain. Since the desert can't absorb the water at the rate that the rain falls, it literally turns into instant lakes and raging rivers. The road was sketchy to say the least. Our jeep passed over at least 20 rivers and lakes, where the road no longer existed. The water was spraying over the roof of the jeep and was thigh high at different points. At one point, our driver pulled over and said "too much water". It looked like raging white rapids where the road once was. We were completely fine with waiting it out rather than the alternative of stalling out in the middle of the river, capsizing and getting washed away down the river. Jack quickly settled down into a nap since it seemed like we were going to sleep on the side of the road until the river cleared out the next day. Out of nowhere, two minivans decided to give it a go, and booked it across the rapids. Our driver gunned it then and followed about 2 inches from one of the vehicles and we luckily made it to the other side. Yeesh. It was far from over though as we still had to cross many more rivers and lakes on the highway and our lovely driver had a tendency to gun it right before hitting the river, so our windshield was covered with water, we were jolted back and heard the rain hitting the roof of the jeep. By the time we got back to our place at close to midnight, we were sand covered, tired, and wide eyed from the ride home. All the guys who worked at the hotel had a great time laughing at the two Canadians that got stuck in the middle of a full out rain storm. Obviously not a big deal to them.
Since we haven't had a chance to download any photos, you can click here to see a link for Jaisalmer with a map and photos.
We spent a quick day in Jaipur, arrived in Agra today by train at 12pm and will post some info soon about the cities and the spectacular Taj Mahal, what an amazing experience. We leave tonight for Varanassi for two days on the 11pm over night train. Then we're off to Goa for a week on Saturday!
We'll be in touch sooon. Hope you're all doing well!
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