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  Jaisalmer, India
Sunday, September 18, 2005

Its day four of our tour of Rajasthan. We are about 100km from the Pakastani border in a city called Jalsalmer. We left Delhi at 6am on Friday which was early for us considering we usually emerge from our dark air conditioned pit at about 1.30pm. We were met by clean and smartly dressed man called Mr Singh. He would be our driver, tour guide and friend for the next fortnight. After a six hour drive through rural poverty and jam packed towns we reached our destination, Mambawa. We dumped our bags and headed in search of some grub. Heading into the town it felt like we had stepped back in time, cows, pigs, wild dogs and goats eating from the open sewers. It was so strange, children were following us through the streets and some women were touching Mairead's arms and clothes. The town itself was boring apart a few havelis, which are houses that belonged to the rich from two centuries ago. That night we were entertained by some local dancers and musicians and a bizarre puppet show.

We left the next morning for Bikaner. One hour into the drive we realised we had forgotten our bible, The Lonely Planet. A sickening feeling took over us and the car was pretty quite for a while.

Bikaner was a busy and heavily polluted city, but the hotel was very nice. After lunch we went to a museum and a Maherajah Fort which was nice. That evening we headed for the highlight of mairead's day.... The Rat Temple. The home of a thousand rats. No shoes allowed so we headed into the filth barefoot. What madness, where else in the world would you find a place like this where people actually worship rats.

Cenotaphs at Lake Jaisalmer

The rats were free to run where they liked, which included your feet. We were told that if you saw the white rat your prayers had been answered and that you were blessed with luck. Mairead stayed close to the door with her shoe in her hand, while Conor venutred into the depths in search of our white friend. After 10 minutes of fear conor returned with a smile. He had caught a glimpse of the said vermon. Had a nice dinner that night on the roof top of our hotel which overlooked the city with two english hippies we met who were great craic.

We headed off early the next morning into the desert. 6 hours later we reached Jaisalmer, the golden city. This has been our favourite place so far, a "peaceful" market town with an amazing fort overlooking it. Everything here is made of sandstone giving it its name. Even the fort looks like an overgrown sandcastle. In the evening we visited the cenotaphs of the Maherajah, and we watched the sunset which was class. Another rooftop dinner and a bit of the premiership in the hotel rounded off a good day.

19th September 05
Had a nice lie in, Mr Singh picked us up at 12am for sightseeing. First stop Jalsalimer lake. A merky kind of lake with some locals washing/swimming in it, some nice cenotaphs in the middle, it was worth a visit. Next stop another Haveli and then the long dry road to the desert. After 100km we arrived in a samll village called Khuri. It was plunked in the middle of the desert, with mud huts which had straw roofs... suddenly we felt a long way from civilisation. We put our bags down, introduced to our transport raj and disco, (the camels) and off we went. 38 degrees and four hours later we watched an amzing indian sunset from the top of the dunes. Back to the village for some local desert food and some traditional music. Mr Singh got absolutely steaming on indian whiskey. We were glad to escape to the desert to get away from him. We slept under the stars in the dunes, with some other travellers. Great night and we will never forget the stars. Heading to next city, will write soon.

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Conor and Mr Singh get jiggy with it...	Conor Of Arabia	Mairead finds love at last!!?!	The camel took this one!

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