Waking up this morning was amazing…It was really nice to wake up on my own, and not by the light of the scorching sun at dawn, or from someone chanting or throwing things.
I decided to venture towards the Fort and into the Museum. It cost ₨300 with a camera and only ₨200 without.
Inside I abled round with the translation headphones, listening to random snippets of information about each room or item. Today I learned that at Jaisalmer Fort there were two and a half times that the wives and daughters or the Maharajahs and noblemen performed Jauhar (the ritual mass suicide). Two were traditional, with the women readying themselves for the funeral pyre with elegant clothing and robes, jewellery and beautiful adornment. The other is not classed at full Jauhar as the women did not have time to ready themselves and get the full preparations completed or to erect a funeral pyre. Instead the men chose to cut the throats of their loved ones so that they would at least join them in the afterlife. I actually thought that this was a little much. How could you do that? I know the whole point of this pride and honour and they would have been brought up to value this, but even if I thought that I was going to die, I wouldn’t then drag my children into death too. Plus, what a horrible way to die.
After the Museum I went on a Camel Safari. It was so much fun! After a group of us were dropped off at the sand dunes in a jeep, we were handed over to our trusty camel driver.
Initially I was a little worried by being on a camel, you only really hear horrible things about them, but none of them are actually true. My camel (Bubaloo) was really quite quiet, only belching a few times, with huge eyelashes and a tendency to eat everything green that it passed. All the camels on the trek were well behaved. I spent a good hour or so on the camel, riding over a great flat area with lots of grass and plant life, then to a massive sand dune with ‘Laurence of Arabia’ style dunes.
It was really interesting to see what an actual desert looks like. I’ve never really seem a proper sandy sand dune place before.
As the group was riding, we all noticed a huge dark cloud in the distance, I thought that this must be rain, but I was wrong. It was a sand storm, and quite a large one! It hit the group full pelt and meant that for a few minutes I couldn’t actually open my eyes, despite having sun glasses and a hat on.
As there wasn’t a sunset the group headed back early and ended the trek there!
The camels were encouraged into a trot/run for a short while on the return journey and it was quite fun, but bumpy. And as I established in previous posts, I have not brought a proper bra with me, only bikinis, so camel trotting is not very concurrent to bikini wearing.
Once back at the hotel I sorted out payments and booked the next bus (heading to Ahmedabad in Gujarat) for tomorrow evening. It’ll be the first ‘sleeper’ bus experience. I’ve been told they’re all the rage right now. Apparently it’s just a like a double bed, but in a bus, and with no head room!
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