Cream of Gold

Tuesday 18 November 2008
Khuri – Jaisalmer

As the clock on my phone was wonky I wake up at who knows what hour and have breakfast. Some local guy offers to take me on a walk through the village. I take him up on his offer though I know I'm going to end up buying some piece of material that I don't really need. To save you any stress over the next paragraph, that's exactly what happens.

Nevertheless we walk though the village and he tells me a bit about life there. Essentially it's all centred around tourism as there's nothing else except desert. Water's a problem, particularly when the monsoon fails, which had been the case for a few years in a row until recently. Even now they have water trucked in ... by camel.

I take some nice pictures of the caramel-coloured buildings and we end up in some textile shop. I relent and buy a cushion cover. Back at the ranch Raj has woken up and grinning like the fool that he is. I shower and we head off to Jaisalmer. Raj regales me of stories from the night before which is kind of him. But it's not long before we catch sight of Jaisalmer Fort looming over the desert in the distance. It really is like a giant sandcastle and is the only thing higher than the horizon in the whole area.

We stop at the hotel which is again pretty nice, though of course I have to ask for a towel and toilet paper. Then after an absolutely awesome meal of chicken massala at a local restaurant
I head off to the fort. I spend a bit of time losing my way through the streets before I find myself back at the main gate again, where I realise I've walked past the entrance to the museum in the Royal Palace.

The guide books were wrong in saying that the Palace in Jodhpur was the best preserved in the state, and that the audio tour was also unmatched. Jaisalmer is more beautiful in my book (it's been significantly renovated over the last few years - an earthquake had contributed to its decline), and the audio tour is just as good (in fact it's very similar).

The clincher though is arriving on the roof where you can see all of the town within the walls of the fort, and you can fully appreciate the “giant sandcastle” tag that the place receives. It's a cute as hell, but in a good way. There are even still small man-made boulders sitting on top of the ramparts waiting to be pushed over on to attacking armies. You can see the roof-top restaurants on the hotels whose tourist trade is slowing undermining the fort's foundations (due to excess water consumption through the leaking sewers created in the 90s) meaning that it may one day be destroyed. It's in the top 100 list for at-risk world heritage monuments.

But the gods of fate, or at least the gods of batteries, have conspired against me as just after I take my first picture from the top of the fort, my camera battery runs out. Which is added to my phone battery that ran out earlier in the day, meaning that I only have my mind to take pictures with, and it's hard to download them from there to a computer.

The other aspect of Jaisalmer's economy other than tourism makes itself known during this visit too, as I hear and see the odd fighter jet scream its way across the sky as I walk round the fort. This is the last town in India before you reach Lahore, and Pakistan's border is about 100 km away.

I have a quick look at the Jain temples in the fort and then make my way back down. Next we head to the biggest haveli in town. A haveli is a large, ornate residence for Jain people, who were some of the best traders and businessmen in the Rajputana, and as a result could afford to build some of the biggest houses in the town. They also incorporated small Jain shrines into the buildings. The haveli are nice and ornate and beautiful, though nothing stood out as gobsmack-worthy.

Last on the trail was a lake constructed by one of the kings to capture water in this the most arid part of Rajasthan. It was almost empty so all the buildings in the centre were literally high and dry. Again they were all made out of the caramel-coloured sandstone of these parts, that looks good enough to eat. But my camera was out of batteries so the only photos will linger in my mind.

There was a slightly more freaky factor about this lake as well. There's a tradition that it's good luck to feed the fishes in the lake, and there are people selling bread and fish food on the approach, and Raj bought some. We feed the fish but there's a shock. The fish are like some kind of cat fish – as large as your forearm. And given that the lake is orange-coloured from the sandstone, you can't see through the water. So the fish have developed these tentacles that reach out in front of them from their mouths. Normal catfish have them, but these ones seemed to have more than usual – about eight, and long. The result is that when you throw your bread in, the first thing you see approaching the surface is a twisting alien-like star formation of dark grey tentacles, before the fish's mouth appears. It looks disgusting!

We returned to the hotel and set out to an internet café. At last, oh god, at last! I took my laptop along and managed to upload a few of the blog entries. Oh happy day! I thought it might never happen. I only uploaded three entries as you can give people too much of a good thing, and I didn't want to keep Raj waiting for too long.

We then went back to the hotel and had some food. He had seen me listen to my iPod earlier and was keen to experience it too. I obliged and played him We're in Yr Corner by Cornershop from the album When I Was Born for the 7th Time, as it's sung in Hindi (and Punjabi as Raj subsequently told me) I also played him Norwegian Wood sung in Punjabi from the same album, and Brimful of Asha. I followed that up with Taa Deem from Asian Dub Foundation, featuring Qwaali singing from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Naxalite from the same group.

He was into all of those, so I played my ace: Doppler. I played the World's End Sessions in order: Agamemnon, Brick Lane, Let it Come down Gently and Sugar Pill. He was a fan of all of them. Naturally. Another country's fans to add to the list. Needless to say Raj was drinking again – I would be worried if he wasn't frankly – and we ended up taking pictures of each other with empty whiskey bottles on our heads. As you do.