Jaisalmer - The Desert and the Pakistan border

The huge and very delicate "sand" castle is the centre of town.
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Imagine the classic honey coloured stone cotswolds village of Stowe-on-the-Wold being taken over by Asians. Return after 10 years and that's Jaisalmer. This place is a small, ancient town built of the same gorgeous honey coloured stone as the Cotswolds, dominated by a fairytale-like life-sized 'Sand' Castle which is crumbling badly after 800 years. Houses with amazing intricately carved stonework are seen at the turn of every corner. Jaisalmer is high up on Unesco's top 100 "at risk" world locations. The same filthy raw ingredients of Indian street life are, not surprisingly, here aswell which doesn't bode well for Conservation! At least motorised vehicles are banned from inside the castle. There are restaurants and 5 or 6 fantastic hotels built into parts of the castle. My section is, well, like living in a real castle...there's no refinements, it's very basic (you can have power for lights OR hot water but not both at the same time!) but it's full of carved stonework, big old wooden doors and lots of quirky little windows.(very draughty at night). This place could be the Assisi of Rajasthan if it had European conservation, European organisation, er.. and Europeans living here!

Any car that pulled up here was chased by a group of camel ride touts. I had a cup of tea with them instead.
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Always looking to move in the opposite direction to the sterile tour groups, I didn't fancy the cliche'd tourist jeep & camel safari package into the desert so I hired a motorbike instead (well, more of a scooter really!) to go off exploring. It was a truly memorable day. The desert is close to the Pakistan border and, as such, there's a military presence everywhere - jets flying overhead, troop lorries and tanks being ferried around.. but... on terrific army-built, smooth, tarmac roads with no traffic! (perfect for the novice biker). 45 kms later I was in the huge pristine sand dunes of the Thar desert miles from anywhere. I waved away the camel touts by the side of the road and sped on through until I found my own desert oasis. In the warm sun, I scaled the dunes loving the awesome simplicity of the perfect ribbed sand and the blue sky aswell as the splendid isolation and silence. I lay on my back and thought if Delhi and Jaipur were Hell at least this is a taste of heaven.

Last 2 blogs at Jodphur and Jaisalmer. Home bound...

Let's hit the road, man. (on my scooter!)
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It was a great high to end my trip. Later today I will board the overnight express train which arrives in Delhi 19 hours later. I've paid for a sleeper cabin for the fewest number of people - 4. 3 nice English tourists would do nicely thanks!