A golden surprise

Waiting for the bus with a cuppa chai

Hooly cow. An appropriate phrase that I'm beginning to feel originated here, given that cows are holy to Hindus and I find myself repeating it daily. We've just arrived back to 'Ba's Guesthouse' situated inside the Golden Fort of Jaisalmer, India.
The Sandstone fort rises out of the desert sand like a magnificent sandcastle, alive with women in colourful sari's and men wearing white shirts and saffron turbans; the original colours that the warrior caste wore & a clever shield from the scorching sun. We've just returned, sleep deprived and sun kissed from a night in the Rajasthani desert, in which we rode with the desert folk to the sand dunes that border Pakistan. The red border lights could be seen about 30km away flashing throughout the cool, cloudy night. But like many things in India, it didn't exactly go to plan...

N & I :)

The monkey temple: Jaipur

We arrived in Jaisalmer after a 9 hour night bus, our clothes damp from the manky double bunk that we'd shared. The pungent smells of the previous nights curry we'd eaten in our dark little cabin and various fumes circulating from the open window, still lingered on our sticky skin.
It had already been a whirlwind of activity: A backstreet meal in Jaipur, forgetting my passport & missing our bus to Pushkar, experiencing racism at its core in a tuk tuk bus in Ajmeer and being driven around Pushkar's mountains and lakes on Shiva day by our new friends N and C. While I'd love to expand that rammed sentence, to put all the events that have occurred into one blog would be total overwhelm; mimicking the sensation of this trip so far (in the best sense).

The Amer fort: Jaipur 

There was a moment on the night N. arrived that remains a perfect allegory for this trip. She was 4 hours late after the airport lost her luggage in Dubai somewhere and we were sat in J's tuk tuk that had just broken down. Positioned sideways, we were pushed through a stream of oncoming traffic on the highway listening to deafening horns of all frequencies blaring their business. We held hands tightly and with a hint of fear and a mound of joy, we laughed at the lunacy of the situation - knowing everything usually ends up alright. Sure enough, 5 minutes later we were puffing on a beadie on the side of the road, watching the mass of noisy cars we'd just been immersed in - and the flow goes on.

Pushkar

Due to time constraints, we were conquering each city in a matter of days, so we zoomed through peaceful Pushkar and weren't quite expecting such a scorcher in the Golden City where I now sit. The fort and Palace previously run by the warrior caste (Bahti's) deserves its own post altogether, for its elaborate history cannot be expressed in a few simple words. We'd conquered the palace and stood at all the viewpoints we could find, our eyes scanning over the parched rooftops, most of which are now restaurants or guesthouses. We managed to spot where we were staying that was distinguishable by the bright sari's flying in the wind of a half-constructed guesthouse. Our only job now was to book what Jaisalmere's famous for, camel safaris; we'd already received numerous offers all day. Many locals came from surrounding desert villages and owned camels (or had a connection that did). They could navigate through the desert like it was the back of their hand. I laughed at how what is such a novelty to us, must seem so normal to them, showing excited tourists their pet camels and sandy garden.

Pushkar lake

Jaisalmere ladies
dressed in colourful sari's

We were walking down the large stones leading to the exit of the fort, passing rows of closed travel agents and slightly wishing we'd accepted one of the previous offers. And then, like the law of attraction, B. pops out of a dimly lit side street and offers us a camel tour. We allowed ourselves to be pulled along by the warm wave of the evening, up another set of foreign stairs, leading to another magical rooftop that evoked a sense of Aladdin's Arabian nights.
After talking business and haggling hard, B brought up a welcome tray of drinks and snacks, paying homage to the hospitable nature of the Indian Culture. We gazed up at the bizarre pink cloud that was floating above us, that soon became a desert storm. We sat in the restaurant below, trapped from both sides (that had no walls) in a power cut, watching the city reveal itself through the odd flash of lightning. We soaked in the energy of the rain (that this desert can go up to 7 years without seeing!) knowing that tomorrow night we'd lie under the milky way, with nothing but dry dunes and a desert breeze...

Jaisalmer

 Recipe of the day: Dhal Bati (A classic Rajasthani dish)
 http://nishamadhulika.com/special/dal_bati_recipe.html