So, here I am again, now in Goa. Let's see...where was I the last time I wrote...? Right, Jodhpur, the Blue City.
After seeing the fort, pretty much did nothing for a few hours back at my hotel, chilled, read and ate, mostly, waiting for my night train to Jaisalmer. Got on the train at 11pm, actually managed to sleep something and arrived at jaisalmer at 5:30am. Stayed inside the fort, nice guesthouse, nice fort, pretty much a sand castle, one of the top 100 most endangered monuments in the world, slowly but surely crumbling...a shame.
On the following day I was ready for the camel safari and, during breakfast met the other two people that were coming with me, Cedric, from Paris, and Kim, from Melbourne. Great guys both of them, we had a lot of fun!
First we rode a jeep to the camels, about one hour away, and then we rode the camels...the fun had just begun. Smelly, tall, kind of scary at the beginning, specially the first time they go up with u in 'em, and mostly when they go down! U gotta really lean back not to fall forward as the thing is bending is front legs. We were all pretty sore pretty fast, but then we got used to it and settled down a bit and relaxed...got into it and became one with the camel...one with the bouncing up and down...but mostly, one with the smell!
We visited a couple of villages on our way to the dunes (this is not a Sahara like desert, is mostly shrubs and bushes, dry trees and such, also dunes, but less) and all the kids wanted school pens, of which we had none and felt pretty stupid about it for the rest of the trip...there is nothing we could give them. We took pictures of them and they loved it. We were invited into a house where the women were making chapati (round flat indian bread) and we sat with them for a while, what a great experience.
Then we moved on until we stopped for lunch, ate with our hands a bunch of curry and saffron flavoured veggies, ramen and a lot of chapati. Kicked it for two hours or so and then left for our final destination, Sam Dunes, where we would sleep.
After dinner, pretty much like lunch but without the pretty much, we sat around the fire and listened to old songs from some guys that appeared out of nowhere, friends of our guide and cook. They played a guitar like instrument and some bangles. Fun.
Oh, almost forgot, had some opium tea, didn't really feel anything...slept great, though!
Got up early, as ususual, earlier than anybody else, and had the fire going and ready for breakfast by the time the guides woke up at 7 or so.
Back towards Jaisalmer, arrived at 5 pm I believe, showered and had dinner with Cedric and Kim.
Took the same night to Jodhpur, got there at 6 am and when straight to the airport, where I waited for ever to catch my plane to Mumbai. Got to Mumbai a few hours delayed and some guys decided to try another scam on me: after I had payed for my taxi ride one of them was taling to me trying to distract me and the other one took the bills and folded them as he was counting them and ripped them a little bit, showed to me and told me that he couldnt accept them cause they were ripped them, luckily I had seen it all. He didn't speak a lot of English (the other one did) so I used hand signs and slowly pointed to the bills, and to him, and to my eyes while I said: "U just did that, I saw u" and the other one quickly said something to his friend, they apologized and I got out of the cab.
Got to my hotel at 9pm, order room service for dinner, and slept until 3am. At 4:30 left the hotel and went to catch my super early train to Goa at 5:30. About 12 hours later I made it to the beach...and not going anywhere for a few days...
Goa, baby!
