The desert fortress of Jaisalmer

View of Jaisalmer Fort
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We reached the desert city of Jaisalmer after a 6 hour train trip through the desert. One of our more unusual train trips - we shared a compartment with 2 Chinese girls, 1 Austrian psychologist and 2 Sikhs from Amritsar. At least it helped to pass the time. The train trip seemed incredibly beautiful and romantic on paper, but after the 1^st hour of desert, while beautiful it got a little repetitive with the only excitement being the odd camel or goat standing beside the train tracks.

Local market underneath our bedroom window
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Jaisalmer turned out to be worth every hour in that train compartment.

Just 100km across the desert from Pakistan, Jaisalmer is dominated by a sand coloured fortress built almost 1,000 years ago. The fortress has a very impressive palace just off the main square that was used by the maharajah. The maharajah’s advisors (all of the Brahmin caste) lived in the many houses crowding the fortresses narrow streets. 

Now, many of the houses within the fortress have been converted into hotels and restaurants and the streets teem with tourists.

Hanging out on the roof terrace
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There are still a number of locals living within the walls of the fortress, but they are almost all now focused only on tourism (‘hey lady, come look in my shop’, ‘looking is free, why don’t you come in?’, ‘hello! Want to buy some things you don’t need?’, ‘Hi, do you want internet / laundry / books / clothes / desert tour etc etc etc).

As well as dodging the locals, we spent a great deal of energy dodging the local cows who squeezed past people in the narrow alleyways and whose dung created an obstacle course throughout the town. Wearing flip flops raised the stakes even higher - especially at night when the streets weren’t so well lit.

Mr Desert comp entrant
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Our hotel ‘ Hotel Victoria’ was just inside the city ramparts and our room looked directly over the ramparts out over the ‘new town’ and out to the desert in the west. Sunsets were incredible from the hotel roof terrace where we enjoyed a couple of evening meals (better than trying to dodge those cow pats in the dark), and breakfast every day. The hotel was really quirky, being converted from the childhood house of the owner / manager Pankaj into a hotel with unexpected courtyards, nooks and crannies.

Hanging out with the locals at the Desert Festival
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We also woke up every morning to a vege market just below our window in the ‘new town’. We spent many an hour watching the action from our room and from the roof terrace, particularly the ongoing battle the vege stall owners had with the local cows who as soon as someone’s back was turned would rush for the veges and risk a beating to eat something different from their usual city diet of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. The vege stall owners employed a number of methods to try and ‘discourage’ the cows including a full time ‘cow beater’ armed with a stick, part time kids armed with stones, and for the cleverer farmers ringing the cows up with offerings of food and ringing them in with rope for the morning.

Our friendly hotel manager and owner
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The new town was also brilliant. Situated just outside and below the fortress, we decided it would be a perfect introduction to India…kind of chaotic and smelly and dusty but in a charming rather than overwhelming kind of way. After escaping tourist hell up in the fortress we happily explored the new town on foot, hunting for an extra bag to put all of our ‘shopping’ in as our packs were starting to burst under the pressure of one too many shopping trips.

However, the highlight of our time in Jaisalmer has to be the Desert Festival which started on our last full day in Jaisalmer. Opening day, held in the main stadium in town, was hot hot hot, but we baked in the sun with the locals to watch the turban tying competition, Mr Moustache competition (these guys have mos long enough to wax and roll up on the sides of their heads!) and Mr Desert competition (huge, bearded men carrying very large swords).

Our hotel in the walls of Jaisalmer Fort
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Eventually, almost at the point of passing out we retired to the stands and sat under our umbrellas. Before long, we had a gaggle of kids around us, all fighting to sit in our umbrella shade, get into photos with us and talk English with us. Simon was initially chuffed when one of the kids said he was beautiful…until we realised that was the only word the kid knew.

Leaving Jaisalmer was interesting…we checked in to the ‘civilian airport’ and all boarded a bus for a 15 min trip through the military airbase to our plane. Simon was itching to take photos of the military planes, but the presence of the soldier with the big gun in our bus put that idea out of his head pretty quickly. We flew to Delhi on Kingfisher airlines, the ‘good times’ airline which employs hot chicks in short skirts to keep the customers happy. Unsurprisingly, Simon didn’t mind having the aisle seat on this trip :)