Fort Rajwada Jaisalmer

... carved sandstone and wood. Their is no adequate drainage system in this fort built on a mountain of sand and clay. Recent increases in tourism have caused the water discharge within the castle to jump 12 fold. This waste water is causing the castle to sink into its own base. Several people were killed a few years ago, when a building collapsed.

Rich as it was, and perhaps due to its richness, the city suffered many ...

... don't make it out here because it's a bit off the main tourist circuit. But it was well worth the drive.
The views from the fort walls were amazing and you could see for miles over the baking desert.
Inside the fort, we stepped into our first Jain temple. We were guided by a monk and led round by candle light.Our guide enlightened us on the Jain religion while the light played upon the intricate carvings on ...

... is even more complicated because the parents don't want their children marrying outside of the city itself. Hmmm do we see a gene pool problem? Maybe that explains the extremely hairy ears on a lot of the men. He went on to state that certain degrees of kinship were not allowed to marry and that there are special priests that keep track of this information. Before the parents can arrange a marriage, they must employ the priest to ...

Jaisalmer is a town on the edge of the Thar desert in the far west of Rajastan, not so very far from Pakistan. Its another town dominated by as massive fort. But this fort is not a museum but a living fort, housing homes and businesses and some amazing temples within its warren of narrow streets. Outside the fort the town is full of beautiful old buildings, many ...

... Latha and I crawled into our tent. The next morning I went to see how the kids where doing and mom was telling dad to quit taking all the blankets and to get out of the sand. What a way to wake up. Dad came out the worst for wear with his camel riding wound, but not suprisingly, he also enjoyed the camels the most! We picked up some textiles thanks to mom's bartering skills, and were off to Jaipur on a night train.

... On the camel back (yes there were camels involves) Kels and I were discussing how we could describe this experience in one word.. and we couldn't come up with anything that quite captured it so i will tell you all about it in detail!!.. We left Jaisalmer in the afternoon by jeep and were driven into the desert where there were some camels waiting for us. There were six of us in total including another aussie from sydney who just so happened to go to Maquarie uni ...

... was amazing - It seemed that there were several times as many stars in the sky than usual and there were five shooting stars!! Above all there was silence, complete silence...definitely very welcome after crazy loud India! We woke up for sunset and chai tea and rode the camels back to the herders base. The desert sun was so hot by now we were literally diving for shade while we waited for the lift back to town. In the evening the friendly chef from ...

... when tourists are encouraging this behavior by giving them stuff like this, I decided I wont give these things to kids again, only food or money to the poor street kids at times. For the rest of the day we trotted on, we chilled out at a beautiful oasis for lunch where the camels, some ...