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Hi! Jenny here (again)!
Jaisalmer was great - its right slap bang in the middle of the desert and the fort is built out of red sandstone so it just looks like a big sandcastle! The fort is still in use so people live and work within it, however because of overcrowding the sewage system cant cope and is resulting in the whole thing sinking into the hill its built on. Its apparently on the list of 100 most endangered buildings in the world, and fact fans 3 of the 99 columns that support it have collapsed since 1993. It's really tragic, so many people live within it and if something is not done really quickly they'll loose their homes and their jobs. Apparently 80% of work in Jaisalmer is related to tourism, so if the fort goes, the jobs will go too.
Anyway, rant over. It's spectacular.
It was my birthday while we were there so the night before it, we sat in our s***ty cheapo hostel and watched Home Alone (classic) and then on my actual birthday we packed our stuff and moved to this 280 year old amazing havelli. Our room was the size of 3 normal rooms, it took 18 steps to get from one end to the other! Plus, we had a deers head on the wall who we could talk to if we got bored. He was called Derek the dead deer. The room was amazing!
So we took a walk round the fort and then got all glammed up for my fancy birthday meal. We went to a really nice restaurant called Trio. It's wedding season here so there were loads of fireworks and wee local musicians were playing. It was really lovely, thanks Colsh :D . 24, eek!
From Jaisalmer, we went to the local village of Khuri. Its only 40 miles away from the Pakistani border, so theres a big military presence around. (It's also not far away from where the Indian army did nuclear tests, eek)..
Anyway, Khuri is in the middle of the Great Thar Desert. It has lots of lovely sand dunes, its its where you want to go if you want to experience a non-touristy camel safari. We arrived on the local bus, and were taken to our accomodation. A little mud hut, with some branches as our roof, and a family of birds making their nest! It was lovely! We slept all day and at 4pm we were picked up to start our safari (its about 45 degrees here now, so its too hot to do anything before then!). We decided we wanted to steer the camels ourselves, so we had 3 camels in total, one for me, one for Colshy and one for our 2 guides. We walked for an hour or so, to a little village (where we were told we could get locally made wine... or opium!) that was full of more amazing mudhuts and lots of kids who were fascinated by my camera!
We went for another hour and made camp on the dunes. Me and Colshy walked to the top of some other dunes to watch the sunset while our guides made a fire and started on dinner. The sunset was lovely, but we were slightly startled to turn round at one point and for there to be a man standing behind us! God knows where he came from, we were in the middle of the desert, miles from anywhere - he must have been walking for HOURS! Also, Colin was dying to see a snake and to out surprise, desert deer make a 'sssssss' noise, so we ran back to our guides as soon as we heard that!
They put down some blankets for us and brought us one of the best melas we've had since we've been out here - absolutely delicious! Then the stars came out and we were able to have a proper look at them. The best bit of the whole trip was when I spotted a satellite - we were watching it going across the sky when suddenly it got MASSIVE and so bright, it seemed to be coming towards us, then it disappeared! The light had just hit it at a funny angle but for a split second, we thought the end was nigh! Either that or a UFO - theres not many places you can hide when your bed for the night is under a blanket on a sand dune in the middle of the desert!
Anyway, for some random reason (which I dont understand) a few hours later we were able to watch the moon rise! It was amazing, and because it was a full moon it was kind of comforting because there was a chance you might be able to see a snake coming at your throat!
I had such an amazing sleep.. Colshy on the other hand had stayed up all night, torch in hand, ready to take a king cobra on. Idiot.
We jumped back on our camels and went back to Khuri. It was really such an amazing experience, i'd recommend it to anyone.
Back at Khuri, we slept in our wee mud hut and ate some more of the families amazing food! At night some musicians came round and played for us - astonishingly good. We kept them back by about an hour because we were enjoying it so much! The family we were staying with brought our beds out to the middle of the wee mud hut circle thing, so we could sleep outside again (without snakes!). We did have frogs and crickets and a big smelly dog though!
Anyway, amazing couple of days.. best in India by far!
Love, Jeny xx
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