Given the other transportation options (overcrowded buses, consistently late running trains), we were happy to shell out the modest amount of money it cost to be driven around. It can still make for a hair raising journey, however, as driving in India is anything but a mundane experience, even in the more remote sections of road passing through the dusty Thar Desert in far western India.
Luckily, we made it safely to Jaisalmer a few hours later after passing through the area of desert where India startled the world a decade ago when it announced its nuclear capabilities by unleashing three of its newfound bombs under the desert floor we’d just traversed.
When we arrived in Jaisalmer, just 50 miles or so from the Pakistan border, we were reminded of the tensions that remain between the two countries. Just outside the city center is a sizeable Indian air force base that launches regular fighter jet sorties throughout the day and evening along the sensitive border that splits the constantly bickering countries.
Jaisalmer, outside of being a strategic military post, is almost more of a remote desert outpost than it is a city. It’s an oasis in the midst of an arid desert that, despite the prevalence of internet cafes, seems hardly impacted by progress and modernity. You’ll as soon see a camel, cow or donkey wandering through the streets as you will a car or motorbike. It’s kind of like walking into a bit of living history.
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| From Jaisalmer '07 |
The namesake fort for which Jaisalmer is best known likewise provides its own glimpse of living history. The fort is made out of golden-hued sandstone giving it the ’golden city’ moniker. The fort looks regal and imposing from its perch atop a mound of its very building blocks, sandstone, as though it was pulled out of an Indiana Jones movie.
Jaisalmer Fort is one of the few that still allows people to live inside it with over 3,000 inhabitants. Walking through the very narrow streets of the fort, you get a sense of what life must’ve been like inside this or any other fort/palace when they were the epicenter of the very civilizations they served to protect. But, that glimpse of history gets old quickly after the umpteenth tout hits you up to buy their postcards, clothing or foodstuffs from the small abodes that have now been turned into one big tourist trap inside the fortress’ ramparts.
As we were in the desert, Jaisalmer also provided one of the best opportunities for me to ride my first, and possibly only, camel. About twenty miles west of the city is a small set of sand dunes that’s a popular place from which to catch the sun setting over the open desert. When you first arrive, however, it’s almost impossible to see the dunes through the sea of touts trying to get you to ride their camels out to the nearby dunes.
A camel is not remotely necessary to get the few hundred yards out to the dunes, but it seemed like as good a place as any to give riding one a shot. Actually it was Jen, not one of the touts, that won me over by convincing me to ride tandem with her. It ultimately made for a short, but interesting experience mostly because I was never quite convinced that the irritable nature of our camel wouldn’t send it sprinting off and us tumbling down to the desert floor.
But, despite a few snorts, our camel managed to trod along safely over the ridges of the dunes, dropping us of at one of the few unoccupied dunes. There we sat for about an hour to take in a nice sunset in one of the most remote places I’ve ever managed to view one.
In an odd way, it made me understand the attraction of Jaisalmer to the people who live there; way out in the middle of the desert, just shy of a tension-filled border, and little else but desert for hundreds of miles. Perhaps it was that last part - little else for hundreds of miles, with fantastic sunsets on display nightly.
JAISALMER PHOTO ALBUM (click photo):
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| Jaisalmer '07 |
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