Desert

I thought I should write this travelogue before I forget the details of the wonderful trip to Jaisalmer.

One fine day in the hostel rooms of MREC, few people started counting the savings from their pocket money after the mess bills, DP expenses and Jai Ambe expenses, for a possibility of pulling out a trip to Jaisalmer. After persuading each other and a lot of deliberation and careful budgeting, four of them thought they can make it and I am one of them. Those were the days when we googled less frequently and only thing that could be termed as 'trip planning' was booking of return tickets to Jaisalmer.

The day of the trip arrived and the four us boarded the train to Jaisalmar with our backpacks on, on an evening from Jaipur Station. It was an over night journey from Jaipur to Jaisalmer. Indian railways offered us sound sleep in its coupe and we all arrived at Jaisalmar in the morning fresh and full of energy. I bet no Railway in the world can match the comfort is to cost ratio that Indian railways can offer. We had no reservations made for our stay. At the entrance of the station a ricksaw/auto ricksaw waala (I couldnt recollect) approached us and after telling him our budget, he took us to a house adapted to be a hotel. The price charged by the owner of the property was nominal and that was the cheapest which was well with in our budget and pretty ok when compared to our hostel rooms and toilet.

We got freshed up and hogged the Aalu ki paratha at the hotel, took some sight seeing tips from the guys in the hotel, we moved out to explore Jaisalmer. The only hue that could seen in whole of Jaisalmar is yellow or Orange. No wonder the its called 'The Golden City'. We went to the Jaisalmar fort, from which the small city looked wonderful. The fort had some temple inside it and usual stuffs like Rajas undies, soap box, comb, sword, crown etc. We had an analog camera with 32-36 snaps reel (Noone knew the exact number) and judiously used them. We also visited the havelis may be 2-3 which were homes of kings in the past and tourist places now. All these places were beyond our understanding, its architecture, history etc. and none of us put any efforts to understand them. :)

The major attraction of the trip was the trip to the sand dunes,infact thats the only thing in our minds. Thats how we visualise a desert and were taught and told thats how a desert looks like. We took a jeep to the sand dunes which was few miles away from the Jaisalmar city. Jeep generally would be used for transporting milk cans. Our joys knew no boundries looking at the sand dunes. It was beautiful. There was an ad shooting going on in the sands for some basmati rice. After bargaining for a while we hired 2 camels for the desert safary. We were 2 each on the camels which never brushed it teeth and burped close to our faces. A little boy was escorting us and controlling the camels. With all four of us on top of the camel, we had noone but him to trust. The boy entertained us by making the camel run fast, which was exciting. He also showed huge iron remains and told that was a destroyed army tank during the war. After a tiring safary we relaxed in the sands and it started raining heavily. It cant get anything better when it rains in the middle of the desert.

I do not remember the events that followed or the order in which I have written, but I remember when we boarded train to Jaipur, our seats/berths had a thick layer of sand due winds, which we cleaned up and went to sleep, before roughtly 7 years ago......

Few question in my mind:

Which month and year did we go on this trip?

Was it a direct train to Jaisalmer?

How many day/days was the trip?

Any other important place we visted in the town?

Travellers : Bharathwaj, Hariprasath, Jayapratap, Ramesh.

Mood after the trip : dont really remember

Mood after writing the blog : brought smile in my face.

Desert