Lost in Asia: Jan 29th - Jaisalmer Fort and Camel Ride

After a few hours sleep yesterday, i visited Jaisalmer's sandstone fort, which was really impressive. Unfortunately I ran out of time to see it properly, but it was noticeable that unlike the other forts, there is quite a large community living still in its environs, which was quite unexpected, and some have lived here for generations. The views from the top of the fort are astounding, and clearly show how close the fort is to the Thar desert that stretches out into the distance. The fort is also home to various Jain and Hindu temples.

Before going to the fort, I'd gone to the train station and managed to get an upgrade on my train ticket for the midnight train to Jaipur. There is a process that allows you to do this, depending on availability, the day before your intended journey (called 'Tatkal') so I was now in a '3AC' sleeper berth rather than the regular sleeeper, which had not been great. Getting the ticket was quite stressful; not much sense of decorum in the queue at the sole booking office counter that was open, with people trying to push in at any time, yet the clerk managed to maintain order quite magnificently. You've got to hand it to these guys, such grace under pressure!

I'd also booked myself onto a one day camel trek into the desert starting today through an agency suitably called 'Trotters', just adjacent to the fort. So at 6am, a jeep arrived at the hotel, took me to the office where I dumped my backpack and then picked up another couple of backpackers from England, Deborah and Lydia, before heading off into the desert, where we had breakfast in the dunes. The light at that time of night was magical looking back at the city.

Riding the camel was pretty terrifying at first, a bit like riding a scooter in Udaipur, particularly with regard to the first ascent from the camel's front legs being followed by a more heightened lurch from the hind legs. What a laugh! My mounts and dismounts were far less elegant than those of my companions! I had to hold onto a metal bar that protruded from the front of the saddle, but it proved impossible for it not to dig into my midriff at various times, which created a soreness that lasted for a few days. Lunch was spent sheltering under a tree from the hot sun for a few hours, with the men tending the camels cooking a very nice vegetable curry, and then we carried on riding into the late afternoon before arriving at a point in the desert where we met up with a group of others who had perhaps taken a different route earlier in the day. All day the skies had been absolutely clear of any clouds, so after watching the stunning sunset over the dunes, the skies were festooned with a myriad of stars. Quite lovely.

I would have happily stayed overnight with the others in the desert, but my crazy itinerary - centred on being in Kathmandu for the Annapurna trek - meant I was booked onto the 5 to midnight train from Jaisalmer to Jaipur that night. Shame as I was enjoying the post-dinner conversation with the other travellers, particularly an American teacher who was trying to explain the US constitution as it applies to elections over there, and how Trump managed to prevail without winning the public vote. So I came back to Jaisalmer in the jeep, picked up my backpack, rested for an hour or so and got a lift to the train station.

The '3AC' train was a lot more comfortable, with sheets, blankets and pillows provided and strangely the two women from Brazil who had been in the queue at the train station the previous day were in the same compartment. It did feel a fair bit safer and more private in the compartment we were in, and I felt more relaxed leaving my rucksack under the bottom bunk (unfortunately I had the top bunk again), and I did get some decent sleep on this occasion. The compartment felt a lot more socially middle class, which probably made me feel a lot safer, especially with not having people from other carriages wandering through at any time of the night.