We arrived in Jodhpur after the bus ride from hell! We thought we had booked a tourist bus but instead got the "local" bus! They have no sense of danger and crammed as many people as possible in to a tin can on wheels for the 5 hour journey through the desert with no proper roads and no 4 wheel drive!! Anyway, Jodhpur is ok, not our favourite place as it is very rundown and busy but the Fort is the best yet and the guest house we stayed at was really lovely.

We decided to go on a little package tour to Jaisalmer via a camel safari in the Thar desert. We went by jeep to a little village to pick up our camels and after the usual cup of chai and a few fags we set off into the desert!! Heather got the crazy camel!! It was the funniest thing that's happened so far.  It looked like the "Bucking Bronco" ride at the fair where you have to stay on as long as possible.  She lasted about 3 minutes before giving up and riding in the camel cart!! After a lovely dinner we set off again, this time sharing the friendly camel!!

We arrived at our camp just before sunset and spent time just lazing around drinking chai and layering up to keep warm.  Our guides made a camp fire and some locals came and sang us some songs!! Our dinner can only be described as disgusting! It was dhal and rice which is fine, except it was freezing and covered in sand..maybe because our cook had been drinking rum before making it!! We went to sleep at 9.30 because our fellow travellers (Onika and Doreen) wanted to but saying that, camel riding is very hard work so we were ready for bed. (And Onika & Doreen were very boring!)

After a very cold night on the sand, we set off back to the village for lunch before heading off in the jeep to Jaisalmer.  We arrived quite late so just had dinner and go an early night as we were up at 8 for breakfast before hitting the town for some sightseeing.  We saw some temples (as usual), the Fort, which is definately a rival against Jodhpur for being the best. (it is also on the world's 100 most endangered sights list as water is damaging a lot of it, as it is one of only a few Forts in the world which is still lived in). After luch we set off back to Jodhpur.

Our guide brought his "cousin uncle" (?) with him for the journey and he was so sweet! He didn't speak any english (and very little hindi it seemed) but we named him the Burp King of India (Lyn, you would be horrified!)  He took a shine to us and invited us to his family home for dinner. It was amazing to see his home and family, and they were just as amazed by us, especially the kids, as they had never seen a tourist before. His wife Gheeta cooked us a lovely tea of Dhal and chapati and they all sat and watched us eat, and found it hysterically funny that we had our own spoons!! Their house consisted of one building whcih was the living/dining room and bedroom combined and a mud hut which was the kitchen.  They didn't speak a word of English but learned "thankyou" from us, and found that really funny as well, as Indian people do not usually say thankyou for anything.

We got back to Jodhpur about 1am where we'll stay for 1 day before catching the 7 am bus to Udaipur.