The bus leaving Udaipur on time is the only good thing I can say about the over-night journey to Jaisalmer. It seems that with every sleeper bus we take the standard and the cleanliness noticeable diminishes. We’d been sold a ticket that would take us from Udaipur to Jaisalmer in about 12hrs so weren’t impressed when we had to change in Jodhpur. We didn’t leave there until 7am so there was no way we were going to reach Jaisalmer at the scheduled time. In the end it felt like we’d been put onto the night but to Jodhpur and then the day bus to Jaislamer but still had sleeper seating. To compound the issue the second leg of the journey saw the bus being used as a local service so it stopped every 10mins or so.
We eventually reached our destination at 12.45pm i.e. well over 3 hours later than we’d hoped and of course our free lift to the guest house had long gone. Still a lad from the bus negotiated a taxi for us at a cost of Rs50 to take us to Dessert Moon on the other side of the city. Jaislamer doesn’t look too big so it shouldn’t take long to walk back to the fort area in the centre. At Rs800 per room this is definitely the best guesthouse we’ve had so far. I loved the character and charm of the haveli in Udaipur but this place feels finished off and it’s spotlessly clean. Being on the edge of town also means it’s in a lovely peaceful location.
Desert Moon couldn’t accommodate us for another night so we moved to Roop Mahal in town. It was the fella from this place who’d picked us up yesterday and he wasn’t pushing his camel trip with too much force so we thought we’d give it a go. The room we had was big with TV and balcony so it was rather more expensive at Rs1200 but it’s handy for the fort and in fact we can see it. Within an hour of changing guesthouses we’d bought bus tickets for Jaisalmer to Bikaner, reserved bus tickets for Bikaner to Amritsar and booked and paid for a half day camel trip. Phew! It means another overnight sleeper but at least we’ve booked trains for the remainder of the long travel days.
All this activity meant that we only had a couple of hours to look around the fort. It’s an amazing structure swamping one of the few non-flat pieces of land for miles around. The labyrinthine maze of narrow alleys is fun to explore so long as you don’t mind regularly hitting dead-ends. Luckily it’s not as extensive as we’d expected so we didn’t have to hare round. In fact it’s a bit of a reverse tardis; the fort looks massive but we’d explored every street and ginnel we could find within an hour. The architecture is stunning but it’s difficult to see it all properly through the craft and souvenir stalls. We chose to sit up from it all in a breezy roof top restaurant under the boughs of a bo tree over-looking the palace. The Lonely Planet twitters on about the fort looking like its mysteriously arisen deep from within a sand dune. It may have done before the invention of plastic alright but these days it looks like it’s been plonked on top of an open landfill tip.
At 2.30pm we were picked up by jeep from the guesthouse to start our half day desert trip. It cost Rs3000 which we felt was somewhat over-priced but we seem to be saying that a lot so I suppose we have to get used to the new pricing strategy here. To put it into perspective the whole thing for 2 people cost much less than one Premier League ticket. Plus, Chandra the boss from Roop Mahal promised us that he would take us to an area not used by any other tour operators so that had to be worth paying extra for. Anyway, about 20kms out of Jaisalmer we stopped off at a 300 year old village that had been abandoned many years ago. I didn’t quite get to grips with the explanation as to why everyone left but it had something to do with the village boss, who was Brahmin, refusing to hand over his young daughter in marriage. It was Jaisalmer’s Rajput elderly chief who was demanding the girl and he wasn’t chuffed at being rebuffed so raised taxes to an intolerable level. Much of the village has tumbled down over the years but a few of the key buildings have been restored and more work is being carried out. An interesting little interlude.
Then we drove on to the village where our living, breathing transport was awaiting our arrival. The 3 camels were hitched together in a classic train with the lead camel carrying the mahout, then Steve and me at the back on the smallest beast. I don’t know if you can use mahout for camels but if it’s good enough for elephants then it’ll do me! At first we walked along at a steady plod but the mahout thought he’d try a faster pace. Again I don’t know camelid terminology so I’ll say we moved through the desert at a jog. With Steve and I being happy with this pace the ride only lasted 1hr 30mins as opposed to the 2hr ride stated when booking the trip. We were happy with that as it’s not really the most comfortable way to travel. At one point we got down to walk the camels through a village and I have to say a stretch of the legs was most welcome.
An added bonus was spotting a couple of Indian gazelle bounding through the bushes. By the end of the camel ride we’d reached sand dunes, which is what we’d hoped for and as promised the place was perfectly natural. We’ve been in deserts before but only really the arid, scrub dotted landscape within sight of villages. We plonked ourselves upon a dune waiting to watch the sunset. It was worth the wait and it was lovely to be in such a perfectly peaceful setting. Dinner was called just as the moon was starting to cast its light over proceedings. We sat on charpoys tucking into veg curry, rice, freshly made chapattis and the best dhal we’ve had of the trip so far. We let that lot settle down (before bouncing back to town in the jeep) perched atop a dune watching the stars starting to twinkle. A grand afternoon’s jaunt into the Thar Desert.
