Day 13

Early morning to beat the traffic in Jodphur. That meant our first 5.30am wake up call that we actually got up for. The guys at reception couldn’t work out the bill, bloody useless! That meant we didn’t get on the road until 6.30am. We can never get up and go.

It was a little strange today, it was our last 283km to our finish line. A little bit sad really.

Jodphur was lovely and quiet, we took the side road/highway out of the north of the city. Where we must of found half of India’s dog population. Bloody unreal!
Obviously the old and injured ones that aren’t good at fighting so they got pushed out to the sticks of Jodphur, didn’t fit in with the main city click of dogs.

The road to Jaisalmer got a little boring, it was one very long road with lots of dead trees and plenty of sand everywhere. We did bump into a lot of Ricky’s along the way though. All doing the same as us - getting to that finish line! We stopped with them to have breakfast. A huge table of us, this order was going to go terribly wrong I know for sure! Me and uncle terry just wanted simple ‘butter toast’ I even pointed at the menu for him and he replied back.

Everyone started to have there food, me and uncle terry waited about 15 minutes for this buttered toast. For him to then say we don’t have any (after dad got some for his toasted sandwich...) bizzare. Anyway here he comes now a few minutes later, ‘no toast, fried’ couldn’t understand what was going on until he walked to the table with a plate of French fries and chilli tomato sauce in the middle of the plate. Great butter toast. We are them anyways, hank Marvin!

We all set back off on the road, the other guys bombed it off. We took it a litre more steady. We are pushing these little things today, they’re doing 50/55kmph for the first time this trip with us. Litre scared of the noise it’s making though haha. They were shouting at us ‘Please stop!’

We got about 100km outside of Jaisalmer and started to see all the army trucks carrying tanks or soldiers falling asleep in the back of them. We noticed that behind the little trees into the desert more there were tents set up with the place crawling of army/military troops and trucks and probably a very large number of weapons.

Note to Remember: Marco from China was one of the rickshaw teams who travelled on his own, flew his drone over Jaisalmer yesterday which is a heavily operated military city 100km from the Pakistan border. To cut a long story short the police picked him up, he got into a lot of trouble, put under house arrest for the night and got deported a day before the finish party as they thought he was a chinese spy. Hmm something very fishy about that, or stupid. Don’t try that at home kids!
Learn from Marcos lessons!

Anyways, we got about 80km outside of Jaisalmer and stopped to refuel for the last time this trip and get some much needed water. Of corse the locals (2 veg overly enthusiastic men) had never seen a blonde girl asking for water before at their shop so prime opportunity for ‘selfie selfie selfie’ bloody selfies don’t think I could be a celebrity. They followed me to the tuc tuc and just rated at me then I got dad an antibacterial wipe and one for myself then he wanted one too. Bit weird the sounds he made washing his hands. I was done get me out, as if Jaisalmer isn’t going to be weird enough as it is.
The three men left me when I started to poke my head out the shaws to have a look at where they were. Useless!

Couldn’t wait to get into Jaisalmer! We arrived on the horizon about 2pm, it brought a lump to my throat I admit. We done it! All 2710km of it, 13 days of driving and trying to survive those dreaded roads! What an achievement! Surprised we didn’t get pulled over and deported for noise complaint we played that horn pretty much the entire way to the hotel.

The place is just as I remember it, sand stone buildings with that large fort on a rock. Military fighter jets going off every two minutes and no women to be seen. Very welcoming I must say..!

We got into the hotel just about after dad found his bearings with his left and right, it was down a side street. Found a fellow Ricky parked at the hotel, jammed them all in and I sorted the rooms. The guy was super nice at the hotel, they’re all so well groomed and their manners are insane, a lot of people at home need to take a leaf out of their books.

It was to early for dinner so we changed and went out to the fort, the hote staff took us in their tuc tuc. Music pumping through the speakers all cramped into one.

The fort is so nice with all the windy side streets full of bazaars, textiles and clothes shops, nic nacs and pits and pans.

We deserve a drink on a rooftop with s view, of course! So we found a hotel/restaurant and sat on the roof although there was no shade so they took us around the side of a litre building on the roof and sat us on four chairs looking out on the city. Haha! Took forever for them to come upstairs with a drink so we went downstairs and had one in their courtyard where it was shaded. Fresh pompadoms and ice cold beer! Lovely!

Soon back to the hotel for a shower and a lie down before we attempted food on our rooftop of our hotel but failed, low season means pretty much the entire kitchen shuts down so we headed to Saffron restaurant where we were meeting all the guys from the run that had already made it to Jaisalmer.

One team got taken on by an oil tanker and evidently flipped their rickshaw a few times on a highway around three four days ago. Their shaw is in a bad way but they got it here by truck. The one girl had her neck braise on.

We had a good laugh with the plastic taffs and retreated back to bed fairly early knowing we could have a lie in tomorrow!

It was a strange, happy but sad feeling. Knowing it was all over just like that. How has it gone so fast!?

283km covered today.

Grand total of 2710km covered over 13 days!