2017, March 15th - March 17th, Jaisalmer Fort, Rajasthan, India 👍

Dateline: March 17th 2017, Delhi, India

Namaste 🙏 Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer. Our hotel/ accommodation is actually in the wall of this ancient fort. Here we are at our local breakfast nook, with a view

The route

Gentle Reader, finally realised that I don't need to make a months worth of (typically excessively boring) travelling on this blog into one lump. Lots of little lumps to follow now that I have some time, minuscule bandwidth and again, cash in pocket.

Now read on...... Bet you can't wait

March 15th

Kayla finally arrived at the house, visibly upset from her latest exposure to Indian misogynism and the feeling that some Indian men have that western single women are a carte blanche for their fantasies. We all do hugs...... (ah!)

However, she has organised and brought my new Indian​ SIM, a valuable commodity to non natives here, and I practice my mobility skills again

Our general direction: Rajasthan. Arvind and she pretty much came up with the samelistv of cities to visit, so we have a direction if not a plan.

"We apologise for the delay"
Early evening

I think Kayla identified Jaisalmer as our first destination, once we were ready to decamp the delights of Delhi.

Essentially, for us, these delights were pretty much restricted to Arvind and Rita, and their gastro menu's, incredibly gourmet, and lots (as in far too much of it) of food. It was great,  but now, the real reason for our travels - the "real" India is finally available to us. I'm hoping its different from the ilk of Chandni Chowk, the centre of old Delhi as previously described.
The train was our chosen mode of transport to Jaisalmer, an ancient fort town in the western Thar desert. About 17+ hours. We have reserved a "2AC", or 2nd class, air conditioned sleeping berth unit. 

We have a 4 berth (2nd class)
It's a bit tight with our luggage
and we occasionally get woken
up in the middle of the night

Before we leave, Rita, our wonderful hostess, and Anil, the house helper, have been tending pots in the kitchen and provided us with veggie wraps for the trip.

Arvind kindly offers to take us to the local station - Gurgaon
It's certainly not set up for tourists: even finding someone to tell me which platform, or place on the platform for our train, took about 10 minutes and the collective English of 3 or 4 officials in the supervisors office 

The final gate to the fort centre

Our train arrives, somewhat late, and we settle down to our night on board, consume Rita and Anil's wraps, and Indian Railway chai  - the only thing Arvind has approved of from Indian Rail. Fantastic

As it works out, we are​ dispersed around one carriage, but consolidate once we are on board.

It's surprisingly comfortable, to me anyway, (tip, fold the blanket into four, and sleep ON it), even if we don't get much sleep.  Plus we live on chai, from the ubiquitous "chai wallah". (I realise much later he charged us double - welcome to India). I for one​, am quite content

Early morning: view from our room to the left (at sunrise)

As ever, I have organised a pickup at the station, and yes, here's our lift. Trust me, a prearranged tuk is the only way to travel third world

We are taken through the town, its obviously somewhat cleaner than Delhi.

I'm not sure where our guest house is in regards to the fort itself, but we head through the fort gates, more gates, another gate, right to the top up a winding path, through more gates, past

It was just such a stunning place

huge sandstone blocks, that are within touching distance on either side, past, various statutory cows, more dogs, other Tuks and motor bikes to the centre of the fort. A 5 minute walk up and up, past golden sandstone, positively glowing in the mid day sun, and we're there

Wow! Its beautiful. Now its easy to see why Jaisalmer is known as the "Golden City". This in the middle of the Thar desert. Who can, and how does any small potentate get so much treasure to build something like this? Thats a lot of camels folks! The fort itself, dates from 1156

Kayla modelling Tuks and
the main gate to Jaisalmer Fort

This tiny guest house, (8 rooms) is a real gem, right in the Jaisalmer fort walls, way up at the top of the fort, it is just incredible. 
According to Wikipedia, "Jaisalmer Fort is one of the largest fully preserved fortified cities in the world."
Also,

Note optimistic 
TripAdvisor sticker

"The fort contains 3 layers of walls. The outer or the lower layer is made out of solid stone blocks and it reinforces the loose rubble of Trikuta Hill. The second, or middle, wall snakes around the fort. From the innermost, or third, wall, the Rajput warriors once hurled boiling oil and water as well as massive blocks of rock at their enemies, who would become entrapped between the second and third walls. The defences of the fort include 99 bastions, of which 92 were built between the period of 1633-47." 
You get the picture. Suddenly, India is fantastic.

 Our guest house cafe is right next to a 16th century Jain temple. Its about 1:00pm, so, after some great grub, our first "real" non Arvind & Rita meal, which is really! great, we can investigate the place

Our view over lunch: the Jain (pronounced "Jin") Temple behind

We walk through little alleyways, around the fort's interior. Shops, hotels, temples all mingle. Very eclectic. After Delhi, it's easy to notice how relatively clean in the fort is. 

An everyday story of simple country folk -
no shortage of food here even if it is in the middle of a desert

There is however, the ubiquitous gutter everywhere, where all manner of detritus, animal, (all animals), vegetable and mineral are, maybe being sluiced out of the castle. Apparently, this way of getting rid of water is destroying the fort. This area of the desert averages about 2 cms of rain a year, and that should be sluiced into storage tanks. I wouldn't want to drink, or even be aware of what is in the storage tanks today

  An incredible example of the stone carvers skills can be seen in Patwon Ki Haveliyan. Our first tourist trap stop. These are six incredible houses (Haveli), built by, yes Patwonji for him (the house on exhibit/ museum), and his 5 sons

Outside #1 sons house

To quote from the Rajasthan website, "Patwa was a rich man and a well-known trader of his time and he could afford and thus order the construction of separate stories for each of his 5 sons. These were completed in the span of 50 years. All five houses were constructed in the first 60 years of the 19th century"

The view from the balcony

It's all pretty stunning architecture, and the stone carving details are incredibly intricate. All over the house, and in 5 more of them. Pretty ostentatious eh?

The amount and intricacy of the carvers craft is almost intimidating. It's incredibly beautiful, and unlike say similar places in Europe, has escaped the vandalism that wantonly destroys such heritage.
Enough! If you are ever in Jaiselmer, go see it.  

The stone carvers
craft to behold

I lost one of my hats in Delhi. 
I get a new one whipped up. It's ugly

The Fort is entrancing, the guest house is amazing, the views from our room are stunning, with Incredibly intricate carvings throughout. An excellent start to our adventures in India. 

A beer at sunset? I thought you'd never ask.

The top most part of Mud Mirror guest house. Jain Temple background, beers foreground

The various chantings starts after sunset into the night and just as dawn breaks, its over really bad sound systems not quite as stunning, there's also a local mosque here to add more flavour, but we wanted to be up to take all these dawn shots anyway, right?

Town view - dawn + a bit

Negotiating the traffic, 
Jaisalmer style

We have a pretty laid back day, meet some Brit travellers who are off for a camel safari. Darin & Jocasta. They do the research, we're happy to tag along with them. We book to go tomorrow. The 18th. This is more like traveling

Kayla & I take a walk way around the town, inside and out. Meet some interesting cows (one obviously run over in a previous life)

The entrance to
Rani Mahal

Trekking day: Although we have great intentions of getting up, packing and heading off to the Rani Mahal early, we eventually get there in the middle of the day. The heat is of course, pretty intense.

The view from the top of Rani Mahal

Up in the ladies retret
Rani Mahal

According to the audio guide, there were 3 successful sieges of the fort. Before the final battle, when the men folk knowing the situation was impossible, their women folk enacted "Jauhar, sometimes spelled Johar or Juhar,^[1][2] was the Hindu custom of mass self-immolation by women in parts of the Indian subcontinent, to avoid capture, enslavement and rape by invaders, when facing certain defeat during a war" ie, all the chicks walked into a fire and got totally fried - don't try this at home ladies. Only then could the men folk go out to certain death in battle

All hand carved from sandstone

So, we have completed our mission, the desert and some pretty camels await us. We deposit our bags at the organisers office, and head out. Eight of us. Apparently, there's a "20% chance of rain". Here, in the desert. Can't possibly be anything to worry about. Right?

From Your Correspondent