Day 2

No one came to wake us up on the train. The train stopped in Jaisalmer around 6 am and everyone was asleep. Eventually people started waking up and realized that we had made it to Jaisalmer. We got up in a hurry and exited. Immediately we were bombarded with offers for autos and hotels. We took a ride to a hotel called Hotel Golden Palace (or something like that). These people were serious crooks – if you make it here – avoid this place.

The hotel representative and we had agreed on a price at the railway station. Anjul did not like the place when we got there and so we told the guy that we would check out some other places to get an idea of what’s around and then come back. The places we saw were mediocre, the only nice place we found was completely booked (wedding party – this is wedding season in India by the way). So we came back. The guy we had made the deal with initially was not there. The other guy there wanted us to pay double what we had agreed. Before we had left, we had also checked the price for the camel safari from this place. They had quoted us Rs. 2500 per person. I figured asking the price of the safari was a good way to judge if this guy was trying to rip us off. He quoted Rs. 6500 for both – an immediate increase of Rs. 1500. There were two female travelers (my guess is from London) who had already booked this safari and this guy was trying to use them as a selling point. We decided it was a good idea to get out of there fast. We later checked the prices around town – the consensus was that a good safari with overnight stay in hut, dinner and a dance show etc. would run about Rs. 1200 per person.

The safari that these guys were trying to sell us included staying in the desert overnight (no hut, no dance). Since it is off-season the tents owned by this hotel had been removed and we would be sleeping on the ground (they had showed us pics of this). We found out later that this was a bad idea because there are storms in the desert at night during these months (which is why the tents are taken down). Some companies do own huts and one can stay in those, but there is no electricity, etc. at night. Most advised us that staying in the desert was not wise. We decided to stay in the desert anyways – just kidding – that would be stupid. We did feel sorry for those two chicks that got taken by these thugs.

We found a modest hotel called Hotel Payal. We were both dead tired and so we crashed for a few hours and woke up around 1pm. We went around town, ate, worked on some computer stuff and found a safari for the evening. We got a good deal that included a car ride into and out of the desert and a camel safari (Rs. 300 each). On the way we stopped and saw a temple and enjoyed some drinks at a shop in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I got a great pic of a guy who lives out here:



The camel safari was great. We rode for about an hour on the camels. The camels took us from the desert to the area where the sand dunes started (this is at the beginning of the Thar Desert). The locals make their money by selling drinks, snacks, etc. to the tourists and hoping that the tourists also buy drinks for the staff. We bought snacks and drinks for everyone that was with us. I did get some okay pics here, but there were some clouds at the horizon and so the sunset was not as impressive as I was hoping for. Even though it was off-season, there were still lots of camels working away.



Two people can ride on a camel, but we had booked two camels. There were two kids (Salim and Ali) that worked with the camels and since the seats behind us were empty, they decided to hop onto those. In speaking with them we learned that the camel Anjul was on was named Hrithik Roshan (Indian actor) and mine was Michael Jackson (no jokes allowed).

The camels have a metal piece running through their nose and there is a rope tied to that metal piece. At some point, Anjul asked Salim what that metal thing is that runs through the camel’s nose. With all seriousness and in his heavy Indian accent, he answered – Steering. We both laughed hard, but the kid couldn’t figure out what we found so funny. The other question Anjul asked – does the camel throw people off sometimes. The kid answered with a yes. Anjul asked what one should do if that happens. Again with all seriousness, he answered – go see a doctor.

Here is a sunset shot - I am including a big one in case someone needs a new wallpaper for their desktop for a few days.



We got back to town and ate at a place called Desert Dhani – it was another romantic dinner. We figured we had good luck last night with a similar setting, so we decided to give it a shot. The food was mediocre. We went back to the hotel. I was almost out when my uncle called – Anjul and I spoke to him about some business for quite a while and then we both passed out again a little before midnight.