Anyone for desert?

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  Jaiselmer, India
Friday, November 24, 2006

Now that I'm strong enough to type again, I can let you know all about my period of convalescence and current state of wellbeing...

As you know, we took a night train from Jaipur where we had made an unplanned stop. R probably told you some story about me getting ill on the train from Agra and not being able to face the 13 hour journey; the real reason was simply that she'd misspelled our destination when organising the tickets and they were only valid for Jaipur (rather than Jodhpur, as planned). Easy mistake to make, of course. Most cities in Rajasthan begin with the letter "J" and have the suffix 'pur' on the end. In fact, we've met lots of other travellers also wandering around looking confused and saying things like "Oh, JODHpur. Yup - I see where I've gone wrong now. Thanks very much." Anyway, back to that night train from Jaipur (as I can see I'm not fooling anyone)

01 Indian - Italian fusion cuisine

. We had a nice chat with Lee and Lucy on the platform while I shivered and burped. I've got so much gas at the moment that I could solve the energy problems of the subcontinent if you attached me to a conveniently located wind turbine. As we got on the train I really wasn't feeling too clever and the sight of the carriage floor which was almost awash with water coming from the direction of the toilets didn't improve matters. The smell was awesomely bad and we both agreed we should try for more expensive tickets next time. Some mean Indians made fun of us (not that we could understand what they were saying) and I did my best to escape the squalor by climbing up to the top bunk, where I shivered and burped my way through the night.

The morning brought a bit more sanity. I was feeling quite tired but a little better and the carriage floor had dried out. The morning journey was spent in the presence of army boys, heading west to their desert exercises. Every time we opened the windows to get a breeze, great plumes of dust poured in (I may not have mentioned before that there's quite a lot of dust in India), but eventually we pulled in to Jaiselmer station on time even though we'd left an hour late.

We're staying at the very pleasant Shahi Palace, just below the fort of this lovely desert city

02 Salim Singh Haveli - Jaiselmer

. There are a lot of injunctions against staying in the fort itself, as the foundations are apparently crumbling away, so we're trying not to add to the problem. A camel/jeep safari is booked for tomorrow (the thing most people come to the desert for) and we're just taking things easy for now. I'm feeling much better overall. The worst thing for me has been the strange loss of appetite. I've become one of those pallid Westerners who orders "plain rice" and "chopped banana". I just haven't been able to eat anything more interesting; my stomach turns each time I think of bowls of oily curry. A bit of progress just now though. I managed a dish of dhal with some rice, so hopefully I'm nearly back to normal. R has been wonderful throughout, really taking over the running of things when I was too exhausted even to stand up straight, and I think she is going to tell me to stop typing now so that I can go back to the hotel and 'eat more fruit'. (T)

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03 The whispering gate - Jaiselmer

04 Jaiselmer Fort - golden sandstone at sunset

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