Day 3 (April 28, 2008)

Our alarm was set for 7:30 but neither of us made it out of bed at that time. Anjul runs on IST anyways – that’s Indian Standard Time. In his defense, he is very chill and willing to go along with whatever happens. He’s also tagged along with me everywhere and helped me with everything I needed to get done. We finally made it out of the hotel around 9:30 or so and I wasted a few hours trying to solve the computer problems at an Internet café. The Internet café across from where we were was called Sumit’s Cyber Café (I figured I just throw that tidbit in).

Nothing significant was accomplished at the Internet Café (damn Apple) and by the time we got out of there, we were already running late. Earlier we had learned that to get to Udaipur we would have to go through Jodhpur (on train) or take a bus. Since Rajasthan is starting to heat up like crazy, we decided that we should skip the rest of Rajasthan (Jaisalmer was the key spot) and head back to Delhi (our initial plan included more cities). Delhi is quite far from Jaisalmer and Jaipur falls along the way. I needed to take care of some business (the conversation with my uncle last night) in Jaipur, so we decided to stopover on our way to Delhi. We reserved some sleeper seats on this bus that left Jaisalmer at 4:30 pm and will arrive into Jaipur tomorrow morning. That’s right – a long bus ride and it is only 7pm right now. And we just hit a car as I write this – that’s adventure baby. Some fighting going on outside – will be back soon.

I didn't get back to writing this until now – it has been 3-4 days since I wrote the line above and I have been kicking it in Delhi. Let me get you caught up on everything else.

So the accident was no big deal. The bus staff went outside and yelled at the driver that the bus had rear-ended. Since the bus had more people doing the yelling, the poor guy moved his car out of the way and we went on our way. None of this insurance hassle, etc. As soon as the earth had rotated out of the axis of the sun’s ray (ok fine – As soon as the sun had gone down), it cooled down significantly and the journey became much more pleasant.

Let’s back up and talk about the day before we got onto this bus in the first place. We only had a few hours left between the time we wasted at the Café and the time that we had to catch our bus and we still had not seen Jaisalmer itself. We hired an auto rickshaw for the day to see some six points and were on our way. While we were touring, our autorickshaw driver Vishnu from Jodhpur called us on the phone - guess where he was? That's right - he went to go see Karan Jadugar.

The first stop was Gadsisar Lake. I liked this place – you can probably chill here for an entire day.





Then it was off to several Havelis (old mansions). These were boring and so I didn’t take any pictures. One of the places we saw was Hotel Mandir Palace (by the way I am researching these names on the net because I have forgotten the names already). This is a 200 year old Haveli with exquisite architecture. This is a must stay if you make it to Jaisalmer – the rooms run around a $100 a night. This was definitely a highlight.







Last stop was an impressive Fort that sits atop the city of Jaisalmer. Unlike other forts in Rajasthan, this fort is completely inhabited and supports different colonies inside. Once you are inside it feels like a small town and it is hard to tell that you are inside of a massive fort guarding the entire city.



So that was the day and then we were on the bus. When I traveled four years ago, my mode of transportation was planes. This time I am trying to do more ground travel so that I can see India. I sat on the bus and stared out the window for hours and watched the scenery change. At one stop, I bought bananas from the bus window – it’s the little things that you remember and enjoy the most. Here are some shots from the bus window.





Just sitting there staring out the window makes you really think about life. This is so removed from daily life and you soon realize that on a long enough time scale, nothing we are doing or worrying about really matters. At some point, I got hungry and purchased some Kachoris off the side of the road (my first meal on the streets since I had been careful up to this point). It was a damn good Kachori. I sat there staring out the window, eating my Kachori as Anjul snapped away on the camera. It was a beautiful ride.