Julie in Jodhpur: Jaisalmer and camel safari

This weekend, Chloe, Jasdeep, and I went to Jaisalmer, a desert city roughly six hours away by train. It was a really great trip and a nice change of pace from Jodhpur.

Striking a pose on the night train--with homemade mango beer in hand

Question of the day: mining coal or shoveling poop?
An absurd embroidered Donald Duck wall-hanging in our hotel room--which was otherwise beautiful and decorated in an Indian style

On the first day, we toured around the city itself--mostly inside the Jaisalmer Fort, which claims to be the oldest living fort in the world (with roughly 25% of the local population living inside the fort and with many hotels). Due to the increasing pressure on the fort from its expanding population, it is also one of the world's top 100 most endangered historical sites.

Inside the fort, there are a whole bunch of shops, restaurants, cows, hotels and temples. Despite a lot of locals living there, it's extremely tourist-y, but is still somehow pretty nice.

First, we went to the main palace. Beautiful rooms and beautiful views. Especially neat was a really intense irrigation system that the palace developed. Considering that it rains roughly 15 cm each year, a system for storing water was much needed (and today, this dry climate and the increased need for water enhances the danger facing the fort).

A view of the city from inside the Raj Mahal

The fort--what a gorgeous color!

We then went to the Jain Temples--of which there are seven in a cluster of varying size and beauty. It was interesting to go, as I don't think I've ever seen a Jain temple before.

Well, despite it raining in Jaisalmer only four days each year (they say they've gone seven years straight before without seeing rain), we saw Jaisalmer in the rain! On the first afternoon, it poured, which meant that we (still tired from the train) retreated to our room and missed a few of the smaller sites. Before we went in though, it was quite a site to see the locals celebrate the rain. I can't imagine rain being such a rarity--but it is, and people were truly enjoying it.

On Saturday, we embarked bright and early on a two-day camel safari, which was pretty fantastic. As we chose the "off the beaten track" trip, we first took a jeep roughly an hour out of the city and then hopped on our camels for our adventure. We rode the camels for roughly six hours each day and on Saturday night, it was incredible to head to the dunes at sunset and the sleep on the sand underneath the stars (with our camels hanging out a few feet away). In addition to three guides (who made our meals, sang a bit, and helped lead the way), we were with two young teachers from Toronto and two students from McGill.

The prettiest camel resting his head

A view of our "caravan"

How cute!!!

Some bonding between me and my camel, Kadu

Riding a camel was, overall, really relaxing. It's not too dissimilar to riding a horse, though your legs have to sit much wider, you generally lack stirrups and you are much higher from the ground. That said, we were able to trot on the camel (which caused giant butt bruises, but was extremely fun). It should also be mentioned that it was roughly 115 degrees throughout the safari--but in the middle of the desert, there was a pretty great breeze, so the heat was not nearly as oppressive as I would have guessed.