Hotel Priya Jaisalmer

... lunch we got a rickshaw out to Mandala Gardens and got completely lost trying to find this carving of 15 Hindu deities carved out of one piece of stone and ended up being accosted by beggars, deviant teenage boys and kids playing fre-re jaka (? not sure on the spelling) on these weird string instruments, I still have the annoying tune stuck in my head. Tomorrow morning first thing I am getting bus to Udaipur which will hopefully be more interesting than Jodhpur.

... we found the prestigious "Palace on Wheels" train standing. We were quick to take a few snaps with the train. Since we had quite some time for boarding the Jaisalmer- Delhi express we retired in one of the rooms available in this station. This station has furnised and clean rooms for its passengers at a nominal cost in the first floor. <br><br>We later boarded the train to return Jaipur next day.

... and did I mention that their toilet didn't flush. That you just poored more water in it to push what is in there down using gravity. Seriously I was mortified. After that, the food was cleared up and Asu walked me back to the hostel, they didn't seem to be in a hurry to have me stay around for after dinner conversation. Oh well, odds are I prob won't see them again. That was the end of my first day in Jaisalmer. I'll write again more later. Time to head out.

... for a camel trek, anywhere from one to fourteen days. We chose one night with an option for a second if we wanted. Our camel guides were more than angry that we didn't take the extra night, they can be a bit pushy in these parts. We started out with an hour jeep ride to the border, the packed us in like sardines. We went with about 5 other people; 2 dumb English girls, a French Israeli character, an Irishman and a Japanese guy who couldn't ...

... across some carcases being swarmed by vultures, many wild goats, and some sort of snake. we got to watch our guide violently beat the snake with a stick he found nearby...well, it did the job...no more snake! and a good 2 minutes of entertainment for the 2 awestruck americans! getting in the spirirt of beating animals...they ask us if we want to buy a goat for dinner ...

... around in jewellery of every type, as bags and bags of jewellery were emptyed out in front of us, we were stretched out on the mat surrounded by thousands of pieces from which to make our selections. Talk about decadence. It was quite an experience with a lot of selection, too much really because you end up buying only one or two things despite all that is on offer. The jewellers have been doing the business for centuries and are part of the ...

... ride we visited a village - an uncomfortable experience that was repeated a couple more times on the journey. The guides seemed to think that simply leading us to the village was enough. The kids would run up and start to demand pens and chocolate and become surly if they weren't proffered on demand. Thankfully, the two Argentine guys knew plenty of tricks to amuse the kids. It seemed that the guides could better plan these visits to allow some ...

... singing, watching young Indian girls dancing around the fire and drinking the worst cheap Indian rum and coke. BRILLIANT - especially when I finally got Richard to dance with once of the girls (Who thought it would be so hard!) : ) <br><br>Only bad thing was the stinking hangover the next day, the fact that the camel smell takes awhile to go away and you ache in places you never knew had existed! <br>

... half of them when the journey comes to an end. We met the owner of the local, government-owned Bhang shop. Bhang is the leaf and flower of a female Cannabis sativa plant and is usually taken in a drink but can be smoked. We decided to give it a go and chose to purchase two high potency cookies from the menu which pretty much consisted of the Bhang biscuits, chocolate Bhang cake or Bhang lassi (Bhang Ki Thandai is a drink popular in many parts of India, a ...

... temples and generally enjoying the holiday feel of the place. It's a popular spot for Indian visitors, rather than foreigners, and it's good to be one of so few Western faces. There's the added bonus that the locals are too busy trying to make money from the eager Gujerati tourists to bother hassling the odd foreigner...and, after Jaisalmer, that's even more refreshing than the cool air.<br ...