Desert Safari

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Last weekend we set out for a whirlwind 3-day desert adventure… 6 of us left on Thursday at midnight on a sleeper train for jodhpur, another city in Rajasthan known as the ‘Blue city’. The train of course was two hours late so we were stuck with hundreds of other people in the train station, who were sleeping and waiting for various trains. Indian train stations are so interesting, you have bunches of people sleeping for shelter, large families carrying more than their own weight in produce, businessmen, army men, tired backpackers all sleeping and sitting on every available inch of space in the entrance and platforms… and of course groups of young men gawking at foreign girls. Men run around yelling ‘chai chai chai chai chai’ and selling other things that I don’t understand.

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Whilst waiting for the other trainees outside the train station I was interviewed by a local TV station that was filming a piece on fear and security after the Mumbai bomb blasts- A celebrity! There are eight small 3 tiered bunk beds in the sleeper carriage, and we had the pleasure of being right next to the lovely lovely toilets (for all 3 trains)- actually so vile, especially after a few hours! It pretty much kills any need to go to the toilet (unless you have a stomach infection in which case you grin and bear it). We arrived weary in Jodhpur at 9am, had breakfast and a refresh at a small restaurant and then set out for the fort, which is set on top of a really really steep hill. The buildings of Jodhpur are predominantly painted a bright blue, which traditionally was meant to keep houses cool and ward off mosquitoes! It is quite spectacular to see the city from the fort…

Last weekend we set out for a whirlwind 3-day desert adventure…

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The Fort itself is huge, traditionally housing Jodhpur’s Royalty; it really is fit for kings and queens… I’ll let the photos explain for themselves … it took us a good 3 hours to climb our way through the fort, discovering all of its nooks and crannies. By the end of which we were royally (!) stuffed… we had lunch on a rooftop Hare Krishna restaurant where the owners were kind enough to pull out a few large mattresses and cushions so we could sleep for an hour or so… Then it was off to the monkey gardens, where we once again bought peanuts to feed them, this time closely guarded. These monkeys were slightly less aggressive than the last ones but they still hissed a bit and tried to pull down Julie’s pants when she refused one a peanut. I had a cow with enormous sharp horns charge at my butt, and was only narrowly saved by an Indian friend who pushed me to the ground out of the way… obviously it saw a nice big target :)

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We wandered the markets at night time, did the requisite shopping and bargaining, stopping for chai and lassi on the way, by 8pm we were so tired that we went to one wholesaler where we sat down, drank chai and were treated to a display of amazing Rajasthani blankets, wall hangings and bedspreads way out of our price league but it was nice to sit and look at them! We were back onto the train at midnight this time heading for Jaisalmer, a mystical desert town in far Western India, 80km from the Pakistani border... The 5 hour train ride was not long enough to get a proper sleep so when we arrived at 6am we were so weary and just our luck it was raining- in the desert, where it never rains! We got to a shitty hostel with flea ridden beds and collapsed for 2 hours, then were woken for our camel safari. And then the stomach infection began… by then end of the two hour jeep ride where our camels were waiting to take us the rest of the way I had intense stomach pains and was making mad dashes to random bushes… needless to say the bumpy camel ride was incredibly painful. I was yelling expletives with every run, trot and bump and was so happy when we reached our camp. Because of the rain we were not able to sleep in the dunes as planned, instead we stayed in some pretty nice tents, with a toilet! Because of the clouds we didn’t get to see the sunset, or the supposedly amazing stars, and slept in for sunrise, so the safari was not so successful- but somehow still an adventure. I declined the camel ride the next day and instead took the jeep and visited the village of our guide, and his beautiful baby daughter…

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We spent our last day looking around Jaisalmer- but one day isn’t enough! The old part of the city and the fort feel like an Aladdin film set… with sandstone buildings, steep winding streets and colourful carpets and produce on display… Julie (Belgian trainee) and I didn’t quite make it to the top of the fort as we got distracted by the stalls selling hundreds of earrings on the way… what is even sadder (or more embarrassing) is that we shoved down our lunch in order to run back and see it before our train left and only made it 20 metres farther than last time- distracted again by a beautiful shop… I definitely need horse blinkers :)

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After all of the running around and sprinting to the train station our train ended up leaving 2 hours late again- soooo frustrating. This time it was a 14 hour train ride, and despite exhaustion we couldn’t really sleep until 8 hours into the ride as we had so many stops, and people moving around. Once again we had a compartment more or less to ourselves so it felt like a slumber party, passing around bananas, biscuits, water and toilet paper. With trainees from Spain, Poland, Brazil, Germany, Belgium and Australia we never ran out of stories or conversation. We almost missed our destination stop in Jaipur because we were all fast asleep… we arrived home late at 7 am and I only had time to shower, dress and go straight to work… some of the other trainees don’t start until 11 so were luckily able to get some sleep.

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I am really glad that I’ll be returning with Shannon in February, because there is so much more to explore, and now I know a few good places to go… it will also be a bit more relaxing being able to sleep in hostels instead of solely on trains! Our next trip will be to Udaipur this coming weekend, and then I have just two more weekends in Jaipur before I meet Shan and Fleur in Nepal- time is moving at a scary rate! I really have no concept of time or dates, the fact that it is December and almost Christmas barely registers… Hopefully my emotions hold out being away from friends and family for Christmas, New Years and my Birthday- eek. Luckily I have a nice bunch of people here to celebrate with. Meeting people from so many different countries is possibly the worst thing for the travel bug- as you have offers of free accommodation, and a local guide all over the world!