Day 8: 29 November – Jaisalmer

Two photos of the day:

- Jaisalmer railway station – our carriage before departure

- a view of the walls of Jaisalmer fort, with fabrics for sale

Jaisalmer was built as a fort in the 15th century. Now it makes its living from the military connection and from tourism for six months of the year – for a few months the temperatures rise up well into the 40s and it is too hot to do anything. It did have the feeling of a border town, quite remote and not seeming as prosperous as the other cities we have visited.

First we visited an old artificial lake which had been created with the town. Water has always been scarce in the area, and for the last 13 years the monsoon has not come to Jaisalmer (although a pipeline brings water now from the highlands). The guide explained the importance of water in Hinduism. He also told us about the different castes and the rules that his caste had: similarly to the Jains he did not eat onions or garlic (because they smell like meat).

Unlike cities like Jodhpur, the old fort is inhabited by a couple of thousands of people. Because of the demand from tourists, many houses in the fort have opened rooms to guests, and this is having an effect on the buildings. The fort was designed using dry stone architecture (no cement, just joining stones together) and the water used by the guest houses and shops is damaging the buildings. (We were staying in a hotel a couple of km away from the fort.)

Inside the fort we walked around the old town first. We looked at the old Jain temple and got a great view of the city from the ramparts. Our guide took us down some of the old narrow streets, saying hello to everyone. (He had grown up in Jaisalmer and been a guide for 25 years, during which time he had taught himself English, French and German.) Then he took us to a couple of the old merchants' palaces – the havelis – in the city outside the fort. They were really ornate and well decorated, although apparently not always lived in now. One house we visited was a antiques shop which had an amazing number of goods on sale, crammed into a small room.

In the late afternoon, we went to the station to take the sleeper train back to Jaipur. (Our driver from Delhi was making the journey back by himself during the day to meet us in Jaipur in the morning – probably relieved to listen to the radio instead of Englishmen moaning about prices.) We were travelling in the best part of the train, the 2 tier air conditioned sleeping carriages. For the first part of the journey I looked out of the window at the desert scenery before going back to my bunk where the fellow passengers had rigged up an array of entertainment systems and were eating mooli radishes with some kind of white substance.

As I write this, I have no idea whether we will get anything to eat on the train or whether I will die of starvation before we get to Jaipur in another 10 hours...