After a couple more days in Delhi we booked a train to Jaisalmer and the Desert Moon Hotel. Most stations have a booking office with a desk for foreigners. This helps a lot in areas where English is not commonly spoken.
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| Cows are everywhere! |
The countryside to the southwest of Delhi is mostly rice paddies but this soon changes into scrubland and semi-desert. Most of our journey was at night and by morning w ere traveling through flat land with lots of small antelopes and peacocks. Ox carts had been replaced by camel carts with big wheels and heavy loads.
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| Camel cart |
A range of hills appeared to the northwest and we could soon see Fort Jaisalmer standing out at the end of the range. Jaisalmer was smaller than expected with the huge fort dominating every view. Karim from
Desert Moon met us at the station and it was a short jeep ride down fairly good roads and by lots of cattle and pigs to our hotel.
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| Fort Jaisalmer from our hotel |
Desert Moon is a nice clean hotel with large rooms, nice bathrooms at an excellent price. They have a good restaurant on the roof with great views of the fort. The food is basic Indian and the staff are really nice. They will even do room service! The birdlife around the hotel is also wonderful.
The town and fort is just a short walk from Desert Moon. The people along the way were really friendly and the whole feel got more and more medieval as we approached the fort. There were many cows, pigs, and various other animals along the way, all living in harmony with the human population. It is a steep climb up to the fort but really worth it once inside. The numerous views from the fort are quite spectacular. A few restaurants have balconies where you can eat while enjoying great views of the city. The prices in Jaisalmer were a bit cheaper than Delhi and the food just as good. One really nice thing about For Jaisalmer is that it is a functioning village with houses, hotels, restaurants, and temples inside the walls.
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| Fort Jaisalmer |
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| The pigs process the garbage before it is removed |
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| More cows |
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| Sharing breakfast |
Back at the hotel we arranged a camel safari through the desert to the west of Jaisalmer not far from Pakistan. The trip only cost $50 for the 2 of us and included transport out to the camels, a six km trek by camel to a campsite, dinner, open air beds, breakfast and transport back. Our guide, Karim, from Desert Moon took great care of us. He had the camp prepared when we arrived, dinner was already on the stove and our beds laid out for a night under a full moon. The moon was bright enough to take an enjoyable walk in the desert and experience some surreal scenes among the dunes. We took another walk at first light and returned to tea and breakfast at our camp before returning to Jaisalmer. There are longer safaris but this was just perfect for us.
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| My transport |
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| Ready to hit the dunes |
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| The camp |
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| Karim making breakfast in the high tech kitchen |
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| Breakfast is served |
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| One of the little people |
A couple more days in Jaisalmer was enough to see just about everything there was and we decided to move on. We took a local bus to Bikaner enroute to Amritsar. This was an experience! The roads are ok but the driving is something we are not used to. The continuous super load horn and the weaving through traffic was pretty harsh. The bus got quite full and obviously not many westerners travel this way as we were the center of attention for most of the trip. We were glad to get off in Bikaner. We had planned to carry on to Amritsar but there didn't seem to be any direct way to get there from Bikaner. For some reason the train didn't go there and the bus info was really sketchy so we decided to stay the night and go via Delhi the next day.
We checked in at the Bikaner hotel where they insisted on payment up front. The room looked ok so we paid but once we were in the room we discovered that not much worked at all. No AC, no TV, broken toilet and an opening in front of a really grotty swamp cooler could not be closed so mosquitoes were coming in. We told them we changed out mind and were going to another hotel but they refused to refund the money. We did not want to create too much fuss so I just told them I would spread the word on the internet and walked out. We have since discovered that in India there are many great hotels which do not rip you off and do not want your money up front so just refuse to do it or go to another hotel where you are treated right. The people here are nice, you do not have to accept crap from the few Bikaner Hotel types.
We found a really nice hotel nearby and in the morning got the train back to our old base at the SB Inn in Delhi and made further plans from there. The places we wanted to see in the north were Mcleodganj and Amritsar, the order didn't matter so we decided it would be easier to get a bus to Mcleodganj and then the toy train and train to Amritsar from there. So next post will be the trip to see the Dalai Lama's home in exile in Mcleodganj.........
