Jaisalmer Fort

Today wasn't too packed with excitement as I was still a little tired post camel safari. I did however get up early and had breakfast with the two american girls staying at my hotel who I'd gone on the camel trek and then before the sun got too hot, joined them on a little walk up through the Jaisalmer fort to visit the Jain temples inside (Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes pacifism and a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation, says Wikipedia)
Once outside the temples of which there are 7 in total, there was a list of entry prices to maintain the temples as always a price for Indians and a price for foreigners, however there were labels put over the foreigner prices with 100Rs written over, the guidebook said it was about 30Rs, we questioned the men outside to which they said that the prices went up that month because it's low season, we argued a little and decided to pay anyway (its only about £1.30) but made sure we knew they were ripping us off! The temples although not overly impressive, did have a huge amount of beautiful detailed carving which I took pictures of (will upload soon!) and they were quite different from the other Buddhist or Hindu temples I had previously seen. The only gripe I had about the experience was, despite the signs inside the temple saying not too, the holy men inside still asked for tips for photos and the man outside had the cheek to ask for money for looking after out shoes to which I said very sternly "take that out of my ticket price!" We then wandered around the fort and had a look at the various view points from which you could see the entire town and the desert in the distance. It was 11am already by this time and the sun rose up with a vengeance and we headed back to the hotel for some air-conditioning and also the girls were waiting for their train back to Delhi at 16:30 so we just sat and read in this little comfy corner in the hotel.
Time seemed to pass pretty fast and the girls left and by that time the sun wasn't so harsh anymore so I decided to explore what else Jaisalmer had to offer. I had read about an artificial lake just minutes nearby and decided to go have a look. I walked into town to try and find a rickshaw but because the towns so quiet, unlike anywhere else I'd been so far, it was actually hard to find a rickshaw. When I eventually found one I hoped in and the lake turned out to be almost walking distance away so I knew I could save my rupees on the way back. I walked through an archway past the 'Thar desert museum' and down to the lake which was more like a large pond but it had some pretty temple like structures floating in it and steps (or ghats) leading to the water edge. This was the perfect place to have a sit down and I wrote a few postcards and afterwards I enquired about the rather neglected looking peddle boats at a small jetty on the waters edge to a few boys sitting nearby. They looked like there hadn't been any peddle boat enthusiasts for months as they jumped right up and were very keen for me (probably again purely for their own amusement) to get in one. A little boy offered to come with me but I said I was fine but I should have learnt from last time as I didn't have a choice again as before I knew it he was sitting next to me peddling like a maniac. It wasn't so bad until he kept on repetitively asking me for "10 rupees, 10 rupees, 10 rupees" until I told him to "please shut up, there will be exactly zero rupees for you!" I clearly have zero tolerance for pesky children too!
After this I simply headed back into town to begin my search for a restaurant for dinner. I had read about a nice cheap Indian place recommended in my book called 'monica' but alas it was closed some nice man told me who also joked that there was no food in Jaisalmer but I then went for my second choice, an Italian restaurant (I try to eat Indian as much as I can) just inside the fort walls which had outside rooftop seating where I could look down on the busy evening market below on onside and look up at the fort on the other side of the wall. I ordered mushroom bruschetta and a spinach and olive pizza which was fully loaded with spinach but which I hoped would make up for my lack of greens the past two weeks. After dinner I just sat there for almost 2 hours and enjoyed the evening and wrote up a blog for the day before. The owner at one point joined me for the usual chit chat of where you from etc and then told me he could sell me any kind of Bhang (a derivative of the cannabis plant which is legal in India), in cookies, cakes, lassi etc but not to buy it across the road as its not good, I thanked him for his advice but with no intention of actually buying any. It was about 9pm by this time and I headed back to my hotel room and watched the end of the fourth series of Dexter on my laptop (there was no tv in my room) but it was awesome and left on a real cliffhanger, anyway day over and sleep time, early checkout tomorrow but at a ridiculous time of 9am! And had to find ways of using the rest of my time in Jaisalmer till my train back to Delhi at 16:30.