Jaisalmer

We spent three nights in Jaisalmer, with one glorious night under the starry desert sky after a long day of camel-riding and eating great food prepared by our trip leader. Truly unforgettable and magnificent trip. Definitely on my to-do-again list. Just the sky during the night is reason enough for a new trip to India. Guess it's true that everyone falls in love in India, but for me it has just reinforced the feelings already there. I had just forgotten how much I love the stars when they are nowhere to be seen.

The hotel we were in was quite nice with the owner already fishing us out in the bus before arriving. The pamphlet seemed quite nice (although identical to another one we got later apart from the font and pictures) so we opted for the hassle-free option of free hotel delivery and after seeing the rooms (very nice) and heard the price (100Rs) we were sold. Of course the price benefit was negated in the price of the camel safari but since it was so easy and the luggage storage was provided and we had also a place for the night after the safari it was an easy decision to make. The hotel staff were very friendly from the start but turned out to be a bit too friendly in the end.

Everything was nice until the camel safari. Safari itself was incredibly good and I would recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat. The uncomfortable part started when the hotel staff (owner and some relative of his) decided to join us at the desert. They basically invited themselves and as if their intentions weren't have been clear before that, a little "manly discussion" while the girls were away made the whole situation quite repulsive even for me. At least I'm not comfortable talking about women like of pieces of meat in the lines of "you take the one in black shirt and I'll try the other one". Well, decided not to enjoy any more rhum they had brought with them and eventually after some not-so-nice word exchange we were finally able to go to sleep by ourselves. (Note to self: bring more clothes next time).

Coming back to the hotel wasn't as nice as our bags had been scrounged through and there were some food and local snus missing. Thankfully nothing important or valuable but still, the thought of the privacy breach was a lot worse. And coincidentally the hotel was booked full so the girls had to move to another hotel and I got a pretty rudimentary room without any furniture and a blanket for a bed. Well, no mosquitoes and a roof over my head so I was settled. Tired and a bit paranoid, had to sleep with my almost blindingly bright flashlight and military knife beside me but luckily didn't have to use them. But still a quite unpleasant night.

The following day we took a train to Jaipur and after doing the heroic deed of reserving our own train tickets we continued to Varanasi where we are now.

Here I have smelled burning human flesh, stepped in cow shit (well, not the first time on this trip), seen a dog feast on the flesh of a dead childs body and been on a boat ride in the Ganges. So yeah, memorable but not necessarily in the most pleasant way. Tomorrow to Agra and Taj Mahal.

PS. I spent all my christmas gift money, so not a lot of gifts or "something nice" coming to your already materially superfluous lives from me this season. Check back here in stead around christmas eve and see what your gift money got. :)