09.03.09

We left Udaipur and ahd a 6hour car journey to Jodhpur. The journey was along really hot winding roads and i felt really ill! Luckily we stopped at Ranakpur a really old jain temple in the mountains-so i could get out for a breath of fresh air! The temple was in a really picturesque location and had really intircate architecture which looked lovely- but as is often the case in India- foreigners were not allowed in to the temple before 12.30 - so we culdn't explore it. We got back in the car and continued on our journey. We arrived injodphur at 3pm. it looked a lot more like Delhi than any of the other places we had been - probably because it is Rajasthan's second largest city. There were a lot more homeless people and traffic. Although we were tired- we went straight out to the fort- as it was the only thing we wanted to see in Jodphur and we only had that afternoon to see it! It was a huge fort up on top of the hill overlooking the city. Alot of the houses and buildings in Jodphur were blue, as they had been painted with an anti-termite liquid whichhad changed the colour of them! It looked very nice from up in the hills!

The fort was one of the best kept that wehad seen and was actually really beautiful- made out of sandstone with winding roads up to it. We had a very good audio guide which we took around with us, but had to rush to get to the end of the tour before the fort shut. We went back to our hostel, had dinner in the restaurant and an early night- ready for our train to Jaisalmer at 5am the next day.

10.03.09

We got up and packed in teh dark and made our way to Jodphur's train station only to find out that our train was 2.5hours late! We had heard that thesekind of delays were quite a regular occurence with thteindian trains-but it was very annying nonetheless! Eventually we managed to get on the train- although in the wrong place to begin ith-as apparantly half of the train was not goign to Jaisalmer....?who knows where that half ended up! It seemed that our carriage was devoted to Westernesrs as we as we were surrounded by people from England- which was actually quite unusual as we had onlymet about 2 other people from England the entire trip!

We had a sleep and finally arrived in boiling hot Jaisalmer at 2pm. Our hostel offered reasonably priced camel safaris- so we decided to book one for the next afternoon and then overnight. We had alook around Jaisalmer and went down to the lake/oasis- the discovery of which apparantly led to the building of Jaisalmer. We had a pedalo ride around the lake in a blue swan boat and saw people feeding hundreds of huge fish on the shore! We were warned not to go near the edges of the lake as it was very shallow and the boat could get stuck- we managed to have a smooth ride, but later had a giggle watching anther couple, who hadn't heeded their advice, trying to free themsleves from some rocks!

Jaisalmer itself looked like a spaghetti western film set! It has dusty streetswith houses made of sandstone and a square in the middle. Whilst we sat and had lunch we could just imagine the streets clwearing and two people having a shooto out.. As we walked home through the streets we could see people getting ready for the hindu holi festival the next da-selling the colourdepowder and water pistols. The Holi festival is where peple put coloured powder over eachother and have water fights and celebrte in the streets. We had heard that it could all get a bit riotous and that western women should be careful- so we decidedto suss it out form our hostel's rooftop restaurant the next day before getting involved!

11.03.09

We saw that Holi did not look too rowdy inthe street outside our hostel -just a lot of people talking covered in red powder and children having water bomb fights....so we decided to get involved as it was a once in alifetime chance!We put on some clothes that we didnt mnd getting ruined and took our water pistols out ! We immediately got pounced on and were covered in powder from all different directins and were hugged by people saying 'Happy Holi'. The powder itslef was mainly red and much like powder paint powder-that we used to use at school- not very nice when it went in your mouth though- i ended up with red teeth and sneezed out a cloud of red! We watched the procession down the street- with a two men dressed as a husband and wife and a drummer going from door to door collecting money- i didn't really understand the significance of this!...After feeling like we had been 'Holied' enough and had enough water fights- we decided to try and get cleaned up for our camel safari-as we looked like two devils and didnt want to scare the camels!

We managed to get the majority of the powder off- but it took some scrubbing and Rhiannon had a red hairline and eyebrow for the next day and a half! Our colthes were absolutely ruined-nd no amountof hand-washing could erctify the damage!

We were picked up from our hostel in a jeep at 2pm. By this time the streets had cleared of people there were just a few Holied cows walking around with pink or blue smears on them and the streets were coloured witht he aftermath. We drove into the desert for half and hour and arrived at the camel watering hole to meet our tour guide called Del Boy! He had threecamels with him: Mine was a medium sized one called Mr Raj, Rhiannon's was the huge leader of the pack, called Mr Burra and Del Boy's was called Pepsi and was a young camel in training for trekking.

We managed to get on the camel's back which took a bit of effort- as it's hump was padded with so many blankets that it was about 1m wide! After a couple of hours the pain started to set in - as we didnt have stirrups and so our legs were moving with each lolloping step forward that the camel took and slowly our skin was being chaffed away. It was difficult to drink whilst ont he caemls, as it was a bumpy ride and we didn't want to let go. Rhi finally decided to give it a go- but at that exact moment her camel tripped over a rock and her water went flying, the camel looked unperturbed and slowly plodded on, whilst Rhi was choking up her water on his back! Finally we reached the sand dunes where Dell boy told us we would be setting up camp for the night. The camels' legs were tied together so that they could only hobble around and not get tto far away- they looked like they were dancing when they tried to walk , which was really funny! Del made a camp fire and we sat around and watched the sun set and ate Daal, rice and chapatti that he had made for us. About an hour after we arrived at the dunes, a desert salesman riding a camel, selling cold drinks turned up!- They were very welcome! The moon was full- sothe desert was surprisingly light and it was nice tosee the camels' silhouttes on the dunes with the huge moon behind them! We sat around the fire and Del sang us some Rajasthani song. We in turn tried to teach him to sing "London's Burning"....but unfortunately it just turned into him saying "fire fire fire fire fire fire fire" pretty much all the way through, so we decided to go to bed ( under the stars lying on a camel blanket- trying to avoid the dung beetles).

We got up with the dawn at about 7am and Del cooked us boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. We helped clear up and put the saddles on the camels (they had special blankets with holes in, so that their humps could poke through) then we set off to see an abandoned desert village. Luckily Del made us stirrups for this part of the trek-but it was still reaaly painful sitting on the camel's back! It started to get erally hot and as there was no shade it began to get a bit unbearable trekking through the desert!- We luckily reached the village and had a quick look around. Del told us that it had been abandoned after the maharaja wanted to marry ag irl fro the villae against her will- so the people all left together to get away from him 200yrs ago. We then sat under a tree to set up camp for lunch. A friendly dog who had been following us all of the day before, who Del called Tipou, also joined us for lunch. It was far to hot to walk around or get back on the camels around midday- so we stayed lying down under the tree until the heat went down a bit. Delboy said we could go and look around a working desert village if we wanted- but the pain and the thought of going on the camels for even longer was not met with much enthusiasm from me or Rhiannon- so we declined and decided to head back to the jeep pick-up point.

We said goodbye to our camels and headed back to Renuka sore and tired, but glad of teh experience! It was nice to feel so at one with nature and to experience an environment so unhospitable and barren, but where peole can still make a living and call home! The next day we left Jaisalmer and got an overnight train to Jaipur.