Jaisalmer

Trip Start Sep 05, 2008
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26
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of India  , Rajasthan,
Friday, October 3, 2008

Another bus ride, this time only 6 hours. Having refused to pay the bloke at the bus station the imaginary luggage charge that he tried to get out of us I spent the journey craning my neck around to look at the rear of the bus whenever we were at a stop, trying to ensure our stuff didn't get nicked. Thankfully they were still there at journey's end.


We'd taken a recommendation from the previous hotel as to where to stay in Jalsaimer. We had chatted a lot to the owners of the last place and really trusted them. The place we ended up in today though cheap was not, as they say, "the George". The room was dark and dingy, and though not dirty didn't seem too clean. The area around the hotel though was something else. The land that time forgot. It was somewhere between Mad Max and any Wild West film you could mention. Photos don't really do it justice.


Inside the town itself is nice enough. "Special price for you my friend" is however in abundance. We took a walk up to the fort which is an incredible construction dating back about 800 years. Unfortunately it's not really maintained (though it didn't seem that way) and it's near the top of an international list of important sites under threat of ruination.


It is HOT. As unfair as it is to say it, we'd both be happy of a bit of Northern English October weather right now. 40°C today and so,so dry - Jaisalmer is in a desert. The place is an assault on the senses. The heat is overpowering, and your nose and throat begin to hurt with the dryness of it after a short while. The sun is so bright that even with sunglasses you find yourself screwing your eyes up. The constant noise is in your ears of horns being sounded by every vehicle that passes - no more than any other city but it somehow seems worse, maybe because of the other senses being stretched to breaking point. And the smell and even the taste in your mouth vary from minute to minute between the dry dust that coats your teeth to the gag-inducing waft of the sewers that seem to have an opening every 10 yards. We were glad of sunset to allow the place too cool down.


Got back tonight to find a cockroach the size of a small horse in the bathroom.
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