Jodhpur --> Jaiselmer

I woke up from my nights “sleep” on the train cross-eyed, dirty, smelly, tired hot and so grumpy. Our original plan was to hang around Jodhpur for the day, leaving our bags in the train cloakroom, and then get back on another overnight train at midnight. I wouldn’t have any of that. I put my foot down and rented a hotel room for the day so we could take showers and rest. This midrange not budget very nice hotel was only $9…just to put things in perspective.

After a nap and shower, I went upstairs to the rooftop café that had a gorgeous view of Jodhpur’s famous fort. I had coffee (chilled by ice cream a delicious alternative to ice) and leaned back to savor my cleanliness. Next to me was a table with 2 women and a man from England. I introduced myself and joined their table. They were working with orphaned children in Udaipur. Lorna, had already been in Udaipur for around a year. I connected with them right away, they were compassionate, quick to laugh, talked a lot, and flexible. Perfect travel partners. When comparing schedules we found our travel plans were identical for the next 4 days!

We walked up dirt roads of Jodhpur and visited the Fort using these hilarious audio guides. The Fort was rich and complicated. We passed women’s handprints before they committed sati (throwing themselves onto their husband’s burning funeral pyre, or in the case of the fort, all of the Royal women throwing themselves in the fire rather than be killed by the opposing army), glittering Raja bedrooms, and large cannon ball holes. At the top of the fort, we sat on cannons and saw the whole city. Jodhpur is known as the blue city and all of the houses are painted blue. It’s a gorgeous sight.

On the way down the fort, a man beckoned for us to eat his “world famous Thalis” made fresh by his mother in their house. We sat on the rooftop and drank Lassi and fresh squeezed orange juice and watched little boys balancing in precarious positions (where are there mothers?!) over the rooftops flying kites. Our Thalis took hours to make but the conversation was good and the wind was warm so it didn’t matter. Full and happy we all piled into our one little hotel room and all took turns taking showers. This time I would be prepared for our midnight train, packed a separate “train bag,” and changed into more comfortable clothes.

I fell asleep straight away on the train exhausted from the long day. Except for stumbling out of my upper bunk bed in the middle of the night without my glasses, putting on some random guys shoes, and then almost falling into the squat toilet (hard enough to do on a moving train when fully awake and sighted), the train ride was great and easy.

We arrived in Jaiselmer at 5:00am and were picked up straight away by our camel safari leaders, thrown into the back of a jeep, and shipped off deep into the desert. Our group consisted of Michael and I, the three English people (Lorna, Kate, and Tim), an opera singer from San Fransisco (Emma), and a brother and sister German pair (whose names I forgot unfortunately.)

We left the jeep and sat on thick blankets while our three Indian guides made us chai, boiled eggs and toast with jam for breakfast. We were assigned camels (based on height I presume—mine was the smallest) and loaded up onto them. Mine was named Moley—as in Holy Moley! When the camel first stands, you feel like you are going to fall off in a bad way.

The desert wasn’t as much riding through sand dunes (although there were bits like that) but rather a very arid flatland with a sparse scattering of plants and dotted with sheep herders, sheepboys if you will. It was as romantic as it sounds. I rode my camel high and closed my eyes pretending I was on an epic voyage, just me and ol’ Moley. We hit a small sandstorm and I had to wrap my dupata around my face to avoid sand burn. We stopped in a village deep in the desert. The houses were very simple mud and straw top buildings with pathetic holes next to them for water. I can’t believe people live like that, what do they do? How must they think about the world?

We took a rest under a tree for lunch, our guides laid down thick blankets for us and started a fire to make us delicious cha and a lunch of rice, chapati, and fresh vegetables. We were royalty. After a luxurious 2 hour rest of talking and napping we got back on the camels (I WAS SO SORE) and head out to the sand dunes where we would be setting up camp. Our camels became silhouettes against the setting sun and rolling sand hills. I cannot believe how lucky I am.

At the dunes, we met 2 other Americans and played a game of hackey sack on the dune top. Some took turns running and jumping off the steep sides and landing in a flurry of sand. Desert children would come and introduce themselves and ask for oranges or sometimes just stand in the windy distance looking at us. More blankets were set up and we ate with our hands by firelight as the camels ran loose all around us. Tim brought out his harmonica and played silvery songs that drifted off into the desert and up into the starlit sky. “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…”

We slept in blankets under the stars, no tents or coverings. This was the real deal. Snakes, scorpions, all sorts of crazy ass bugs be damned. I again wrapped my dupata around my head to go to sleep but still woke up caked in sand. At this point of the trip I’m so beyond needing to be clean that I welcomed the sand as an alternative to the usual dirt. After a breakfast of cha, eggs and toast, we head back on our camels, stopped for lunch, and then took a jeep back into the city of Jaiselmer.

We checked into the “Artist Hotel” and rearranged the traveling groups so the girls and boys stayed in separate rooms. I’m such a sucker for woman camaraderie. The rooms were shockingly beautiful with private balconies, fabrics all of the walls, and a beautiful open sky rooftop restaurant. I ate the most delicious dinner of my Indian life: “Desert Tandoori Chicken” with cilantro and crisp tomatoes and onions with fresh squeezed mango juice.

I had met the musician of the night earlier and he sang in that haunting Hindi way while playing sitar, looking at me and reaching his arms out to me singing songs about “Jesse.” (All Indians think that’s my name for some reason…must be the way I say it.) He was a real schmoozer. Needless to say he got my tip. He came over after and taught us all how to play the castanets and drums.

Earlier I had also talked to an Indian traveler, while waiting for the internet to free up, who was applying to public health schools. I now sat with him and he told me about how he worked for NGO’s for years but was ready to do something he felt was more concrete. Indians, he felt, are a lot like Americans in that they all just want the next big TV and spend every last cent on gaining higher material goods rather than doing good. His family thinks he’s crazy for wasting an international degree by coming back to India and still be poor.

My friends went to bed early but I lingered on the rooftop, had another cup of chai, listened to the waiters now off work tell funny Rajasthan stories (translated by my new Indian friend) and watched the Golden Fort’s lights shut down one by one. We weren’t the only ones on top Jaiselmer’s rooftop at night. Many families took advantage of the monsoon breeze and slept in sleeping bags on top of buildings. Jaiselmer must be one of the most comforting cities in the world.

The next day we split up into small groups and explored the city. Unfortunately, the camel ride took up 2 of our 3 days in Jaiselmer—a day was not nearly enough to see all of it. Known as the golden city, the houses look like ornate sandcastles and the Golden Fort sits on top with a view of the stretching desert that surrounds the city. A city in the middle of a desert. Doesn’t that sound like a fairytale? The local women’s colorful dresses pop even more brightly against the sun and gold. Tim, Emma and I sat on a rooftop ledge, legs dangling, looking at the cows squeezing into little alleyways that looked like moats in this sandcastle city. For the 50 millionth time this trip I thought “my god, where am I?”

We said goodbye to Emma and boarded another overnight train back to Jodhpur and back to the hotel we had stayed in 3 nights before. It was appropriate to say goodbye to Lorna, Kate and Tim in the same place we met. I really missed them.

But Michael and I were on another adventure: a train to Mt. Abu.