Jaisalmer
INDIA
End of the Line
By LYNDI
Saturday, July 2, 2011
It’s rare that a train ride to a destination can sum up your travel experiences there – but that’s just what happened when we arrived in Jaisalmer.
First of all, when we awoke early in the morning on our overnight train, we were coated in the sand that had swept in through all the crevices during the night. Getting up from our lower berth beds, the body outline we left behind was an exact image of how we’d been curled up that night – an auspicious sign of what our experience in Jaisalmer would be like.
Second, the city is the end of the line on India’s extensive and thorough train network, and it was simultaneously the end of the line for our trip through the country.
Jaisalmer is known as the “Golden City” due to the sandy-golden color of all the buildings in town – a wise choice considering the city is surrounded by a barren desert that regularly whips sandstorms through town. The real draw to this far-flung region isn’t the golden buildings, the Saharan temperatures or the remoteness – it’s the camel safaris. The first thing we did upon arrival was book a 2-day camel safari through the Thar Desert – a decision we would soon be seriously questioning…
While awaiting the departure of our safari the following day, we spent our first day in Jaisalmer catching up on sleep in a beautiful air conditioned room (not an option in the intense dry heat of the summer) and visiting several shops within the large and ancient fort.
Despite the fact that the town’s treasured fort is slowly disintegrating due to poor water usage, 25% of the town’s residents still live within the walls of the fort – speeding up the ruination to an unknown degree. Plenty of guesthouses, restaurants and homes line the narrow streets, though frequenting any of these establishments is considered irresponsible. As someone described it to us – what happens when you pour water on a sandcastle? That’s essentially what is occurring to their treasured fort – and no one is doing anything about it. But all that aside, we braved the afternoon heat to look at all the last minute goodies we wanted to buy for family and friends – and, naturally, ourselves.
The next day we headed out at 7am for our venture through the desert. We were teamed up with two other travelers and deceivingly put into a nice, comfortable, air conditioned Jeep to take us 40 kilometers outside of town to where we would embark on our hot, sticky, smelly and dusty sojourn.
The Jeep pulled off onto the side of the road in the middle of nowhere where four loaded camels and three smiling, turban-clad men were waiting for us. We met our camels and sat on top of the cushioned saddles (with a gaping hole in the middle for their hump) and awkwardly took off. I say awkward because watching these beasts get up from a sitting position is quite a clumsy affair – and if you’re sitting on their back, balancing with no stirrups and no reigns while they lurch back and forth is no easy task.
Baba, Daniel and Aladdin (yes – the perfect name for a kid in a turban) walked on foot while the four of us slowly lumbered through the arid scrub brush and dying trees. Surprisingly, the Thar Desert isn’t full of rolling sand dunes like you would imagine the Namib or Saharan Deserts are – it’s mostly flat and scrub-covered sand.
After about 2 hours on the camel we pulled into a shady area for our lunch break – it was only 11am or so, but no human or animal does much between the hours of 11 and 2 in the desert. We spread out blankets, the men prepared chai tea for us and we relaxed in the shade and enjoyed the hot breeze. Sure, it felt like God left his hair dryer on, but at least it was moving air.
Lunch was a vegetable curry with chapatti around 12:30 and then there was time for a quick nap before heading back out. But it was not long before we were ruing the day we’d signed up for a two day camel safari – clearly, camels are not meant to be a comfortable ride. Perhaps the giant hump on its back should have been the giveaway, but about one hour after lunch we were all crying for a break. We stopped in a dilapidated village in the middle of nowhere to give our groins a break, but after about 20 minutes we loaded back up for the final hour and a half push to the sand dunes where we would set up camp.
We got to the picturesque sand dunes around 6pm and all hobbled around for awhile before chai and dinner time. The stretch of sand dunes isn’t all that large, but looking around you’d think we were camping with Lawrence of Arabia.
The highlight of the trip was definitely the night – the temperature finally started to drop, the sun set behind a curtain of haze and the stars began to litter the sky. Baba set up blankets for us on top of the sand dunes and the four of us fell asleep underneath the night sky.
Morning came too quickly and by 8am when we set off, it was already blazing. There wasn’t a single one of us that looked forward to mounting the camels again, but up we went and during the next 3 hours tried all manners of rearranging our legs and limbs so that we weren’t straddling a beast the width of a refrigerator.
Liberation came in the form of the air conditioned Jeep that pulled up about an hour after lunch. Aaron and I all too happily climbed in and were sped back to Jaisalmer.
The camel safari was definitely a great experience – especially sleeping on the sand dunes – but I would only recommend a 1 day/1 night trip. Not only were we sore for the next few days, but the heat and flying dust was inescapable – as well as the stench of the camels, which I cannot possibly describe. If you’ve ever smelled a gassy dog, amplify that by about 200% and you’ll be close.
Back in Jaisalmer, we spent the next day finishing up our shopping and enjoying a great meal and conversation with the owner at Jeet Restaurant. It’s interesting, because India is the first place we’ve met other Americans that tell people they are Canadian – they claim it’s because everyone hates Americans. I don’t think that could be further from the truth – sure there’s some haters, I’ll never deny that – but we’ve had such interesting conversations with locals and other travelers about what’s going on in the world and the role our country plays. We’ve also gained really valuable insight into what the world really thinks – not just what our talking heads at home think – and a surprising amount of it is really good.
In the past few years, we’ve watched the outlook on America completely reshape as we’ve elected a new president, disengaged from wars, and attempted to climb our way out of the biggest financial crisis in generations. Pretending to be from Canada can only be a disservice to yourself – we’ve faced zero problems and generally really enthusiastic conversations from people interested in getting an American’s perspective on different issues. Sure, we’ve been lectured by a few French and Germans about how Americans are too overweight or something else they just need to assert their superiority on, but that’s a small price to pay for the insight you gain from genuine locals and travelers.
So here’s a tip from a fellow US traveler – those of you doing this – STOP. You can do so much more good representing your country in a good way and giving other travelers another idea of the US instead of what they see on TV and in the movies. OK – stepping off the soapbox.
So as our trip in India began to come to a close, we boarded our last night train – a 20 hour journey to Delhi – and bid farewell to Jaisalmer, extreme heat, and stinky camels – a fond yet difficult farewell that Aaron will sum up in our last India blog.
