Day 16 - Jaisalmer Safari - Tuesday 1st November 2011

With Pushkar in our rear view mirror we headed for Jaisalmer, which is still in the territory of Rajasthan but about as close to the Pakistan boarder as it gets. Soph had organised the camel safari with a company called Trotters Independent Travels, yes you heard it right, Trotters Independent Travels!! I was happy as this is probably the best named travel agent ever!!

As Soph had arranged the safari, it was left to me to sort the transport; Jaisalmer is about 10 hours away by train. So yesterday, whilst still in Pushkar, I walked into the village market to get our trains sorted…. no trains….ok sleeper train…..no sleeper trains… ok so a sleeper bus is what we need… no sleeper buses! So we ended up with a 15 hour, overnight, seated bus ticket for the bargain price of 400rs each. When I was sorting the bus with the guy, he said "Oh Mr Slint, it goes straight there, no stopping, its luxury coach for tourist, you'll enjoy it very much". Well he lied, because the bus did stop. It stopped about every 30 mins to pick up the locals who paid the driver cash in hand to take them to places on the route!! It was so bad that at one point (about 3.30am); I had a bloke sleeping on my knee, one under my chair and one kid curled around my feet! Soph is now in charge of transport and I'm back to the rightful job of rucksack and bag carrier!!

Anyway we eventually arrive in Jaisalmer, tired, irritable and smelly - that's just Soph, I was fine!! Trotters were supposed to pick us up but because our brilliant bus driver had stopped to pick up half of India, we were an hour late. So I gave Trotters a call and who should answer….. you got it, an Indian guy called Delboy! Jokes aside, he was great and came himself to collect us in his jeep. Over a cup of chai, he talked us through what the safari included, how it all worked and that I must cover my head, however I didn't have a cap? Not a problem for Delboy as he set about putting a cloth turban on my head!! So with the deal done and my new head piece firmly in place - we were ready, we used his bathroom then jumped in his jeep and off to the dessert. After about an hour we reached the camp and joined 4 others for rice, curried veg and chapatti. The group included us, 1 English guy and 3 Germans, who were all really nice and good fun. Fed and watered, we jumped on the camels and set off across the dunes - 3 hours later, and walking like John Wayne, we arrived to a huge dune in the middle of the dessert to see the sunset. It was amazing!! Plenty of pictures attached!

After sunset, our tour guys lit a fire and started the preparation of our dinner; whilst we all sat round the fire and chatted with another group that were on the dune next door. Soph sat next to a guy who was into natural healing and meditation, it actually turned out that he was a monk for 10 years… how weird, 2 monks round one fire! Soph thought he was really interesting and spiritual - I just thought he was a bit weird! Anyway, we sat on blankets and ate our dinner till about 9pm, then sang happy birthday to one of the guys who was 59 that day, and then got our beds ready. Soph and I then snuggled up under the stars and drifted off to sleep - so romantic (but bloody cold!!).

Day 17 - Jaisalmer Safari and train to Jodhpur - Wednesday 2nd November 2011

We woke at 5.30am to the smell of chai being made and the sky turning a red and amber colour ready for the forthcoming sunrise. It didn't disappoint, and we all sat in awe sipping our morning brew admiring the view.

After some fruit and porridge, we loaded up the camels and starting our morning trek. Through the sand dunes we spotted antelope galloping, which is apparently good luck! With already sore bums (I actually have carpet burn on my bum cheeks!!) and now sore backs from sleeping on the desert floor, the camel ride was hard going and it wasn't long before everyone was calling for a break. After some lunch and a snooze, we were picked up by the one and only Rodney (Delboy's right hand man, not brother!) in the Trotters jeep which has a rather dashing leopard print interior, and headed back to the town.

Having not washed our bodies or teeth for over 50 hours, the, albeit cold, shower was a welcome relief. Clean and slightly more awake, we headed for the German Café to eat cakes and Skype Nan for her birthday. After 4 cakes and several failed attempts to connect on Skype, we gave up and headed into the fort.

Jaisalmer fort is different to the others we've seen so far as it is a living fort i.e. like a huge medieval looking estate of houses in the shape of a castle (if that makes sense?). We made our way to the Sunset Palace restaurant and met Mark, the English guy from our camel safari. Several food courses later, we went back to the German café to see if our waitlisted train ticket had been confirmed. It had (thank god); we were sleeper berths 41 and 42.

We arrived at the station and saw the customary cow and puppies on the station platform (it seems that no station is complete without these essentials, as well as the odd cockroach and rats). The train was already at the platform, but with the mistake of our last train still in our minds, we double, triple checked it was our train (basically Adam put his head torch on and went through the carriages and asked every Indian what and where the train was going). After 20 minutes of this, we finally decided it was indeed our train and boarded. We shared our carriage with a lovely Indian family with 2 young children and Adam kept one of them amused by sharing his rummy hand and the odd card trick. After an hour, we hit the sack ready for our arrival in Jodhpur.