Jaisalmer, Camels, and 'The Desert King'

Well after five days living in the walls of Jaisalmer's golden fort we're preparing for the next stage of our journey - a 15-hour bus ride to the lake city of Udaipur just in time for Diwali celebrations.

It's been a pretty busy few days. As Angela's mentioned, Jaisalmer is a little more of a tourist trap than we had expected. Every day to leave the fort you have 'run the gauntlet' of touts and hawkers trying to sell you everything from wooden statues of Ganesh to camel and motorbike safaris.

In an effort to fend them off I've now started talking in gibberish and my best Borat voice (you know how it goes), it doesn't stop the stares but they do leave you alone.

So, highlights of Jaisalmer?

Well we both spent Friday trekking around the Great Thar desert on the back of camels - an interesting experience. The camels were impressive they truly are the weirdest creatures to look at, and even weirder to ride.

You don't have stirrups so have to let your legs hang either side of their body - this is quite painful, and despite learning my lesson after some horse riding last year, by the end of the day I felt like I had been on some sort of Medieval torture rack.

But our guide 'Urga' was brilliant and cooked up two fantastic curries, chapatis and dal over a camp fire in the desert. It was probably some of the best food we have both had so far, and eating in the sand dunes as the sun went down was fantastic and a memorable moment.

Overall we were both pleased we had opted for the one-day trek rather than stay overnight. We got all of the benefits (the sunset, an amazing night sky where you could clearly see the Milky Way), and almost none of the problems (a night with the huge black dune beetles - think 'The Mummy', and two days of camel torture).


I say almost none of the problems, as I did have to go 'Ray Mears' after lunch - but the goats were almost no hassle and didn't run off with the toilet roll.

Yesterday, as I hit the big 3,1, we took in the sunrise from the roof of our guesthouse 'The Moti Palace', and decided to escape our relatively sparse surroundings and touts and opt for a little luxury.

We booked a day's swimming in one of the city's five-star hotels and after arriving at around 10am found we had a huge luxury pool to ourselves - at least until the massed ranks of the French and German tourists turned up and proceeded to turn the quiet desert retreat into something out of Allo' Allo' - they were so loud.


The hotel was quite a strange experience - aside from the staff, you don't really even feel like you're in India - it was a sterile sort of place. We're both definitely pleased to be seeing things as backpackers.

Ok, it's not exactly luxury, but it's less then 3 quid/night and we're meeting a lot more people and seeing the 'cow in the road' India, instead of being shipped from sight to sight like some sort of high-class cattle in luxury a/c coaches.

One of the best characters we have met so far is the owner of our guesthouse. After we checked in on Wednesday he introduced himself to us as 'The Desert King' - and even has this name on his motorbike.

After he found out it was my birthday yesterday he promised: 'We make party for you' and proceeded to ply us with an endless supply of Kingfisher and rustle up a delicious homemade curry (which we are still suffering from).

He reminds me of some sort of Indian Del Boy, and despite looking as though he has spent one too many summers wandering the deserts, is in fact only 28. He has broken English and plans to some day open a resort in his village outside Jaisalmer and monopolize the city's supply of milk and peanuts.

In the mornings and afternoons he lounges around in a towel and vest lording over his 'palace' and the two child-labourers that cook and clean for guests and seem to both be called 'the boy'.

On to Udaipur we go...for Diwali, Lake Palaces and Octopussy.