Three days in Udaipur with the luxury of a hotel room, a shower and access to a very nice swimming pool was very pleasant, and it was a real shame to leave. Although the strain on my wallet was starting to show. Whilst I am sure it is possible to live cheaply in India, I am starting to believe this involves sitting around smoking pot a lot, cos as soon as you start going places and doing things the expenses rack up pretty quickly and if the Indians are good at nothing else they excel at inventing ways of parting you from your cash (who can blame them). I was astonished to find that in my first two weeks I have spent over 400 dollars. This, not surprisingly, has blown my budget to smithereens and, rather more surprisingly, has made these two weeks the most expensive of the trip so far. Time to reign it in a little, methinks.
Anyhow, after leaving Udaipur we set off for Jaisalmer calling in at Jodhpur for a whistle-stop visit on the way. Jodhpur is notable for a couple of things, the first and foremost of which is giving the world silly trousers. Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly,there is the quite unbelievable fort that sits atop a hill overlooking the town. This was the main reason for our stop here and we spent a couple of hours following absolutely the best audio tour I have ever had anywhere around this quite amazing building. Words fail me - go see for yourself. From the fort you get a magnificent view over the town and can appreciate the third note-worthy reason for visiting Jodhpur - it's blue, or at least predominantly so. Many of the buildings in the town have been painted with an indigo wash (apparently because it repels insects) that, from a distance, gives the town a very appealing blue colour. Quite a sight.
Leaving Jodhpur we headed for Jaisalmer. Camping once again in the grounds of a hotel, in this case another quite amazing building that was once one of the maharaja's palaces, we were gifted with a panoramic view of the main attraction of Jaisalmer: the old city. This is a medieval town set atop a hill that once again sports a most impressive fort as its centre-piece. Jaisalmer is the epitome of a medieval town sporting a most impressive outer city wall that rises to over 40ft in places and hides a warren of narrow maze-like streets and a multitude of all kinds of bazaars, eateries, drinkeries, people, dogs, cats, cows, rickshaws and open sewers. We were treated to a very informative city tour here by a guy called Daniel who was a veritable mine of information about the town, the temples and the fort. Most impressive. To cap it all we were treated to a visit (look only - as long as you can fend off the hard sell) to his brother's textile shop where we were plied with drinks and given a show of very fine Indian craft. There is no doubt that these crafts are impressive and you can buy here for relatively little products that you would pay a fortune for in the likes of Monsoon in the UK. Unfortunately for Daniel, however, we came to him after 10 weeks in the middle east and have been somewhat hardened to this selling technique. Thus parting us from our cash in this way is somewhat harder than I suspect is so with the average tourist. Better luck next time...
Our visit to Jaisalmer was to finish with an over-night camel safari into the desert. I have been looking forward to this for some time, and it was quite an experience. I was surprised to find that riding camels, whilst definitely less comfortable than horses, is also not as uncomfortable as it is reputed to be and the two hour ride into some amazing desert landscape was extremely enjoyable. This was topped off by a very pleasant evening drinking beer, eating rather good food and dodging yet more saucer-sized spiders at Daniel's (who apparently has fingers in just about every pie there is) desert retreat. After some wrangling over the specific details of the accommodation and the onset of yet another sand storm we retired to the mud huts for yet another very sweaty night of little sleep. The following morning, after a really quite nasty night, I refrained from taking the return camel journey opting instead for the shower/truck option. Then in short order it was adios to Jaisalmer and off to Bikaner and the Rat Temple. Yay!
Anyhow, after leaving Udaipur we set off for Jaisalmer calling in at Jodhpur for a whistle-stop visit on the way. Jodhpur is notable for a couple of things, the first and foremost of which is giving the world silly trousers. Beyond that, and perhaps more importantly,there is the quite unbelievable fort that sits atop a hill overlooking the town. This was the main reason for our stop here and we spent a couple of hours following absolutely the best audio tour I have ever had anywhere around this quite amazing building. Words fail me - go see for yourself. From the fort you get a magnificent view over the town and can appreciate the third note-worthy reason for visiting Jodhpur - it's blue, or at least predominantly so. Many of the buildings in the town have been painted with an indigo wash (apparently because it repels insects) that, from a distance, gives the town a very appealing blue colour. Quite a sight.
Leaving Jodhpur we headed for Jaisalmer. Camping once again in the grounds of a hotel, in this case another quite amazing building that was once one of the maharaja's palaces, we were gifted with a panoramic view of the main attraction of Jaisalmer: the old city. This is a medieval town set atop a hill that once again sports a most impressive fort as its centre-piece. Jaisalmer is the epitome of a medieval town sporting a most impressive outer city wall that rises to over 40ft in places and hides a warren of narrow maze-like streets and a multitude of all kinds of bazaars, eateries, drinkeries, people, dogs, cats, cows, rickshaws and open sewers. We were treated to a very informative city tour here by a guy called Daniel who was a veritable mine of information about the town, the temples and the fort. Most impressive. To cap it all we were treated to a visit (look only - as long as you can fend off the hard sell) to his brother's textile shop where we were plied with drinks and given a show of very fine Indian craft. There is no doubt that these crafts are impressive and you can buy here for relatively little products that you would pay a fortune for in the likes of Monsoon in the UK. Unfortunately for Daniel, however, we came to him after 10 weeks in the middle east and have been somewhat hardened to this selling technique. Thus parting us from our cash in this way is somewhat harder than I suspect is so with the average tourist. Better luck next time...
Our visit to Jaisalmer was to finish with an over-night camel safari into the desert. I have been looking forward to this for some time, and it was quite an experience. I was surprised to find that riding camels, whilst definitely less comfortable than horses, is also not as uncomfortable as it is reputed to be and the two hour ride into some amazing desert landscape was extremely enjoyable. This was topped off by a very pleasant evening drinking beer, eating rather good food and dodging yet more saucer-sized spiders at Daniel's (who apparently has fingers in just about every pie there is) desert retreat. After some wrangling over the specific details of the accommodation and the onset of yet another sand storm we retired to the mud huts for yet another very sweaty night of little sleep. The following morning, after a really quite nasty night, I refrained from taking the return camel journey opting instead for the shower/truck option. Then in short order it was adios to Jaisalmer and off to Bikaner and the Rat Temple. Yay!
posted by Al at 6:04 am
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