Details!

Hello all! This past weekend we ventured to Rajasthan and found ourselves in the desert. As Dan mentioned we traveled by overnight train and it was really quite amazing to fall asleep in a city like Delhi and then wake up in a completely different desert atmosphere. Let me start off by saying that this trip was amazing! The more we see of India, the more we grow to love it! So we arrived in Jodhpur early Thursday morning where we immediately hopped into a car that took us to our hotel in Jaisalmer. Traveling from Jodhpur was a four hour trek through the barren Thar Desert. All of a sudden Jaisalmer's towering fort (first picture) begins to rise up from the nothingness that surrounds it like a mirage. The town of Jaisalmer was built around the fort, but even today the fort houses people and markets. Our hotel was even located within the fort. This is one of the very few places in India where it is possible to stay inside the fort. An interesting side note, Jaisalmer is only about 80 km east of the Pakistan border. Our hotel was small and quaint and from our window at the edge of the fort we had an amazing view of the town below, the vast expanse of the desert beyond the town, and a picture perfect view of the sunset (although we enjoyed this scene from the roof of our hotel which was set up with tables and chairs). Within the fort there were many extremely narrow paths, wide enough for pedestrians, motorcycles, and of course cows! Along these "streets" there were many little shops and vendors selling the usual trinkets, jewelry, and textiles. It was really fun to wander through the maze of the fort. Also within the fort there were some really amazing Jain temples (second picture). The temples were so beautiful. Built from carved sandstone and how intricate and detailed the carvings were! You can kind of get the idea by looking at our pictures, but these structures were so unique and so magnificent. Being in Jaisalmer, you have to experience life within the fort as well as life in the surrounding desert. So we went on a village safari and camel trek. A guide drove us and a couple from France, also staying at our hotel, in a jeep about 75 km outside of the city into the desert. Here we stopped at a couple of villages to get a feel for life in a tiny village in the middle of the desert. This was an interesting experience and as the pictures show, quite a different way of life than anything I have even seen before. After this we headed off to a village where we hopped on some camels and rode them around the desert for a while. (third picture) It was so much fun! Camels are great. They make noises that sound a whole lot like Chewbacca. We had a great time with this and it ended in sunset (well as much as we could see through the clouds) a dinner prepared over a campfire for us by locals with Kingfisher (India's beer of choice) and lots of dung beetles! There were tons of these rather large beetles that had no fear and came right up to you. We spent a lot of time throwing or flicking them away from us, but it did not hinder the good times we had in the desert. We then headed back to the hotel, we had the option of staying the night in the desert, but we had to wake up early and head out to Jodhpur the next day. Jodhpur was also quite amazing. The Meherangarh fort in Jodhpur (fourth picture) is one of the, if not the best, preserved fort in India. We toured that on Saturday and it was awesome! The old part of Jodhpur, or the part right around the fort is so interesting because all of the buildings are blue. It was really quite an amazing scene, especially looking down on it from the fort. Our guidebook says that the blue color comes from indigo that was added to a limewash they used to protect against termites. Check out the pics! The hotel we stayed at in Jodhpur was a beautiful garden retreat with flowers, trees, birds, chipmunks, lizards, and toads everywhere. It was so peaceful and so relaxing, we loved it there. Also in Jodhpur we saw a beautiful marble memorial built in memory of one of the maharajas and we saw the current maharaja's (who we met at the polo match in Delhi) palace. The palace usually costs a minimum of 350 rupees to enter and tour, but half of the palace was taken over by Taj hotels. So Dan told one of the guys at the entrance that we were staying at the Taj hotel in Delhi and were interested in staying at this Taj when we come back to Jodhpur. So we got the tour for free! We get something called Taj points at our hotel. For every 100 rupees spent we earn a taj point and we can use these points to pay for food or to stay in other Taj hotels around India. So when we have a lot of Taj points we will definitely be using some to stay at the maharaja's palace! Overall we had a fantastic time in Rajasthan. There are of course more details to share, but already this is so long. Please Please Please check out the pictures by clicking on the link in Dan's previous post. You guys have to see this stuff!!!!! Please Please Please also comment and send e-mails, we want to hear from you all! Talk to you soon.
-Courtney