14th Jan, 2016

Dear loyal followers, my apologies for the late posting – when, eventually, I catch up with this blog you will understand that this holiday is not just one long sojourn lying by the pool. Anyone will understand who has been on a touring holiday with me (0800 hours, depart hotel, morning sightseeing, lunch (if you are lucky!), more sightseeing, photo session, revise what we are going to see tomorrow, etc); or a poolside holiday with Val (up at 0600 (if she is having a lie in), gym at 0700, breakfast, yoga, scrabble, Shaun T exercise video, Yahtzee, quick nap, table tennis, swim, supper, more Yahtzee and sleep within 2 seconds of reading her Kindle). So time is a premium!

Well, we last left you travelling through the Thar Desert on our way to Jaisalmer. It has been described as something from The Arabian Nights – with tuk-tuks. Rajasthan has its Pink City (Jaipur), its Blue City (Jodhpur) and Jaisalmer, its Golden City as I am sure the photos will make self-evident. We checked into our hotel, Rang Mahal, the night before – and again were moving rooms as we managed to flood the bathroom a little (honestly, not our fault – the shower:shower curtain ratio was about 80:20!). I know how much you enjoy seeing the way we have had to slum it on this trip, so here you go with the latest offering (the pool was, once again, refreshing).

After our hearty breakfast it was off into the town. We were met by our latest guide, Imran and transported first to the Gadi Sagar Tank, a man-made lake (built in 1367), which was once the town’s only water supply. We had to go through an imposing triple gateway, built by one of the maharaja’s concubines, which meant that it was not seen as appropriate by the local populace. To get round this, she put a small shrine in it – so all was well again. All in all, a truly lovely, tranquil spot.

It was then off to the fort itself through the market place (complete with very young tightrope walker – why not in school? See photos) and through the gates up to the fort. Jaisalmer Fort is different to the others in as much as it encompasses about 2000 people living within the confines of the 100m high walls. There are lovely winding streets with lovely winding cows and less lovely motorbikes and tuktuks and it is the sort of place you can happily get lost in. The city was founded in 1156 and as is usual you have to enter through a number of gates (complete with nasty-looking spikes on the doors to stop elephants from pushing them in when besieging the city). It was pointed out that traitors and criminals were thrown in the ‘death well’ by the second gate. The fourth gate leads into the main chowk or square which is dominated by the old palace of the Maharaja and that for his women (one of them had 21 wives).

The streets are narrow and there are no cars, but quite a few smaller forms of transport, but generally it is magical and unlike anywhere else we have been in India – a little like Venice without the canals. There are several havelis or mansions, which are a particular feature of Rajasthan especially the western end. They are simply magnificent – fabulous carving of the soft Jurassic sandstone with elaborate latticework with three or four storeys around a central courtyard with most commissioned in the 18th and 19th centuries. I hope the photos do them justice – if they don’t you will have to see them for yourselves!

We took Val back to the hotel and Monu very kindly dropped me back in town to take a few more photos which I have put together as a montage of faces and colours of Jaisalmer.

Well done for getting this far, assuming that you are still reading this! The final part of our day in Jaisalmer happened outside about 35 minutes drive into the desert. Yes, it was time for the obligatory camel ride and sunset photo opportunity. My camel was called Rocket – I could not work out if it was more in hope than expectation, but he did go quite quickly at one point – and I am not sure if our mahout (or whatever a camel handler person is called) was into irony. Not too uncomfortable once you got going. The sunset was fairly standard and the drive back to our hotel was exciting as Monu enjoyed what were relatively empty roads!

Ok, well done – that was a long one – the next ones will be a bit shorter, promise!