Greetings All from the desert!

Man is it hot...apparently you have to be crazy to visit Rajasthan at this time of year....

We relaxed in Pushkar some more and then on Monday Amrita and I decided to catch up with Elad and Kylie in Jaisalmer... This turned into another adventure as we got to the bus station in Ajmer and queued for tickets and were told we could only get a ticket when the bus arrived! So we waited for the bus and it eventually turned up.. I guarded the bags and Amrita joined the scrum for a ticket... Then there were no tickets left!!! Stuck in Ajmer at 1 a.m. We begged the conductor to let us on and told him we'd sit in the aisles but he totally blanked us and refused! So we had to resort to public transport!!! Finally boarded a bus for Jodhpur at about 2 a.m. and got stared at for about an hour before they all got bored and went to sleep. We were the only women on the damn bus! And a public bus at that. .mmmmm...

Got to Jodhpur after no sleep, being flung around and bounced around and actually had a result as the people at the bus stand were really helpful... We were only in Jodhpur about 10 minutes and then into the oven of another public bus to Jaisalmer at last!!!! This took another 6 hours and we eventually arrived at 1 p.m. after no sleep or food!!! We headed to the fort haggled for a room for Rs 70 (GBP 1.00) and went in search of food! A guy came up to us with our names scribbled on his hand and Elad had "posted" him there to give us a message about where they were staying. Kylie actually got the room where Helena Christiansen had stayed! Jaisalmar is stinking, stinking hot but stunningly beautiful. We are staying in the actual fort which is like having a castle to play in with magical narrow twisty alley ways and all in golden sandstone. It is soooo beautiful...like a living museum.

We decided quite quickly that 3 or 4 days in the desert on a camel was conducive to probable death so we opted to go on a day and night safari. This entailed piling into the back of a jeep at 9 on Tuesday morning and heading off to the desert. We basically did everything an actual safari with camels does but without riding them for 4 days... We saw abandoned ancient cities and temples and visited a village where the local skills were demonstrated by wrinkly old birds with no teeth and saw inside a home of some of the villagers which we all smacked our heads on the doorway!! Then lunch was 3 hours sitting under a tree hiding from the sun but still melting and eating a spicy veg curry and chapati and drinking chai (which I am rapidly becoming addicted to!) all cooked on an open fire and chatting to the others in the group. There was myself, Amrita, Elad, Kylie a Canadian guy called Richard, bit of an action man, and 2 English girls Evah and Liz who are really good fun! We mounted our camels at about 4 and I was made to be the first to do it as for some strange reason they decided that because I ride horses I should be the camel guinea pig! Anyway my camel was a very handsome non flatulent beast called Michael Jackson!!!! So I can now say (not very proudly in fact I may keep it quiet) that I rode Michael Jackson in the Thar desert!!! It was great fun and after a drink stop we (well I) decided that it was time to go a whole lot faster on these here beasts, so the handlers mounted up too behind us all and off we went. We only managed a fast trot which was hilarious to see the others bouncing around and I kept on asking my chappie to go faster but we never managed a full on race! Man did my seat bones remember the next day....we rode for about 2 hours and got to the Sam Sand Dunes at Sunset but we were so busy lining up for photos with our camels we kinda just looked briefly at the sunset and then took loads of photos!! Dinner was rice, chapatti, curry and dal camped on the dunes and more yummy chai...then as the sun disappeared we all laid out on glorified blankets and chatted. We did lots of star gazing and saw 3 shooting stars and talked to the guides until the bugs came out. Liz got stung by something random and then so did Amrita about an hour later. Then the guides came over and asked to borrow a torch. We saw one of them beating the crap out of something and he came back and said "Please, please don't worry" Stupidly we asked why and he told us it was cobra and scorpion season and he just killed a scorpion!!! We all wrapped ourselves tightly in blankets after that and got absolutely no sleep as we were freaking out and daren't go to sleep!

Thankfully the sun came up at about 6 a.m. and to much relief everyone was scorpion free and we had breakfast and then set off in the jeeps to see the last few monuments and temples and got back to Jaisalmer about 11 a.m.... The rest of that day was spent in the shower for an hour removing sand from everywhere and chilling out! We met Evah and Liz for dinner but were tucked up in our scorpion free beds by 10.30!!

Spent yesterday afternoon looking around Jaisalmer and the old havelis which are gorgeous and winding up shop keepers!!! Today we've been to the lake and chilled there for a few hours and this completely strange man and his Indian musical instrument sang us songs for a while. We eventually gave him 5 rupees to go away. A bunch of Indian guys also spotted us and decided to have their photos taken with us!! No escape...I think I'm going to buy a small house and set myself up as a tourist attraction and charge 10 rupees for Indians to come and stare at me!!!

We had an amazing stroke of luck getting our train tickets to Jodhpur as we arrived at the station and it was full of soldiers. I wasn't scared being surrounded by guns and testosterone!! With the situation with Pakistan as it is and being close to the border there is a massive military contingent here. So we joined the very long queue and then a nice soldier told us we can go to the front so we went straight to the front of the queue and the nice soldiers moved over and let us get out tickets and even helped us out! Bless!

We are leaving tonight for Jodhpur as it is just way too hot here pushing 50 degrees in the desert and no doubt there will be me, Amrita and 80 soldiers in our carriage tonight!!! Should be a laugh then!!! We are planning to stay 4 or 5 days in Jodhpur and chill and we've also been told of a really great swimming pool at a hotel to spend the day!! Amrita is totally like minded and in no hurry to rush off as Elad is. We may catch up with them in Jodhpur but with his frantic schedule of running around we may have already missed him!!!

So now we're heading off for some fodder and then back to the hotel later to collect our bags and off to the station to catch the 11 p.m. to Jodhpur and see what that's all about. I will try and update the website with some photies from there too. Amrita and I are going to travel together for the remainder of Rajasthan and then head to a national park to go on a wildlife safari and hopefully see some tigers. We have decide though that camping out in scary creature season is not the thing to do and will be firmly staying behind four walls each evening!

Hope all is cool with you all. David cheers for the update on the malaria advice and Amy great to hear you've finally made it to Argie but don't eat the corned beef!!!

Take care, loadsa lurve

Lillie

xxxx