Today we explored Jaisalmer Fort! We explored every crack and cranny of the golden fort. It was amazing! It was founded in 1156 by Rajput ruler, many battles had been fought here. This fort is the most unique in India as it still has 3000 people living inside!!

We arrived at the fort by foot, it was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel. As we walked I noticed that the building in renovation where covered by bamboo sticks as we call it scaffolding. I must say it’s a very dangerous way of building as I saw men balancing on a single beam whilst doing work! I also noticed that a lot of kids we passed had dark eyeliner under there eyes, this is because parents believe it protects there eyes from the sunlight, they do this for the first four years of there life! The walk was interesting, dodging cows, tuk Turks and motorbikes down narrow lanes.

We finally arrived at one of the gates to the fort! It was huge! We had a guide which took us around. As we entered there was a lot of cute street dogs and children begging for money.

As we walked around I found it fascinating that tourists where walking around someone’s home! I found it strange as we were walking past people brushing there teeth outside and eating breakfast outside! I felt like we were intruding. There were a lot of shops inside the fort, trying to capture the tourists attention. One shop seller said “how many wives do you have? By something beautiful for them all”, I found that very funny!

We finally ended up at the top of the fort, where there was a cafe for us to take a rest. At the top of the fort was an amazing view, you could see for miles! It was very impressive, there were some dogs laid on the edge, very scary!

We made our way back to the entrance of the fort and then were taken into a silk shop. We had to all take our shoes off before entering, this is to make sure you leave all negativity outside of a workplace. As we sat down we were offered the Indian tea, Madala Tea. I had never seen so many beautiful pieces! He sat us all down and showed us the difference between a real pashmina and a fake one. The fake ones that you find on the street normally leak colour when you wipe it with a wet wipe, where as a real one does not bleed. He showed us all his different types of materials, I must say he was a good seller, we were all drowned in material, literally. Some people bought bedsheets, throws and most of us ended up purchasing gorgeous pashminas.

As we left the silk shop our guide approached us with a newspaper, we had appeared on the front page of the Jaisalmer local paper. It basically said how happy they are to have tourists in there city!

That evening we all chilled as we were up early for a bus to Jodhpur!