Day Five: Train to Jaisalmer
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
6
228
Trip End
Jun 01, 2007
Jaisalmer,
Rajasthan,
India
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
We change train engines a couple of times, and wait for 15 minutes at many stations. Progress is very very slow. We have plenty of time to get off at Pokaran for pakoras and chai and to stretch our legs. There are a lot of men about, proudly bearing luminously hennaed hair and moustaches.
Finally, after 20 hours aboard the 'express' train, we pull into Jaisalmer station.
We're staying within the 12th century fort which dominates the small city, at Deepak Guest House. There is a rooftop restaurant here with an airy view over the compact maze of the fort, the ornate towers of the Jain temple and surrounds. Jaisalmer is a relief after the sweat and bustle of Delhi
01 Pokharan Station
. Cars are banned on the fort's steep and tight, cobbled roads, so birdsong can be heard above the horns.Binu leads us on a stroll around the fort to the north-facing cannon. People still live within the battlements but their trade is mainly for tourists - textiles, hotels and restaurants - but it's still evocative, wit mustard sandstone alleys, ornately chiseled balconies and swallows nesting beneath the archways.
We return to our hotel's rooftop restaurant for the sunset. The three-day-old moon is also in the west. Bats dart about as a ribbon of pink-orange sinks behind the distant windpumps.
I am tempted by a bottle of Indian Syrah wine, but at IR790 (about 10 pounds), it seems indulgent. So, while everyone else swigs Kingfisher beer, I slip out into the alleys, quieter with the shops closed. I watch the dancing street kids and the gathered rickshaw drivers opposite the Raj Mahal from the terrace of the 8 July café, while having a supper of apple pie and ice cream. The palace is bathed in orange light. Now it is beginning to feel like a holiday.
