Jaisalmer

Date this blogpost was written: 1 February 2010

Jaisalmer was wonderful, though the trip did not go exactly as planned. We wanted to go to Jaisalmer mainly to see the Desert Festival, but after a 10 hour night-long ride bumping to Shakira, Britney, NSYNC remixed with techno beats (the CD our driver had on loop), we made our entry into the city. We awoke to a blood red sunrise in gray skies and a vastly different landscape--small shrubs and lots of sand, with camels and peacocks on the side of the road rather than the usual cows and dogs-- and were welcomed with military men and army tanks, which were coming down the road we were going up at regular intervals (at which point Claire gave the quote of the trip--"if we end up in Pakistan, I'm gonna be pissed!".

We arrived at Fort Rajwada around 9am Saturday morning with strained necks and backaches, eardrums still thumping to "Sandstorm" beats and Shakira tunes. We had been told that was where we were going to stay. As we stepped out of the van ready to step into the hotel, our contact came, told us to get back in the van, and took us to Pithli Haveli--the smaller, less-swanky version of Fort Rajwada across the street. As soon as we reached our new (still nice) destination, we were informed that the state government of Rajasthan had cancelled the last day of the Desert Festival (the day we reached) because a Minister had died the night before. So, we went to the Golden Fort and explored, did some shopping, ate at a nice little restaurant overlooking the Fort called Little Italy, and made our way back to our rooms, where we were decided to watch Lagaan. We passed out about 10 minutes into the movie.

The next day, we relaxed in the morning (I completed some applications) and went into the Fort area to get some sweets to give to our wonderful driver. On our way back, the rickshaw Claire, Marty, and I decided to take broke down, and we took pity and offered the driver 10 Rs. (1/4 of the decided price) for the 1 minute (about 1/15 of the way back) we had spent in it; the driver yelled he would not take a rupee less than 20 Rs. As I yelled back, about 20 other men crowded around us in the busy intersection; this ended up being a good thing, because I told my rickshaw driver I would only give him 20 Rs. if someone was willing to take me and my friends all the way to our hotel for another 20 Rs. (since the agreed price had been 40 Rs.)-- one of the other rickshaw drivers in the group of men crowded around us calmly told me he would take us for the price I wanted, and all ended up fine. Sunday evening, we headed to the Sam dunes for our sunset camel ride, which was just as lovely as promised, minus the man who drunkenly followed us (on a camel, mind you) through the dunes--but no worries, our camel drivers guarded us and chased him away! We then had chai and ate dinner to a Rajasthani dance and music show sitting around a fire under the stars.

Our 21-year-old driver, Vinod Bhaiyya, drove us back Sunday night, getting us back into Jaipur at 7:30 am; I was elected to sit up front with him around 4:30 am to talk to him in my broken Hindi and keep him awake. After just prodding him with a couple of questions, he talked to me freely for two hours straight--about how he cannot understand any Gujarati, his craziest past driving trips, how loved he is in his village (he decided to drive us through his village on the way back), his neighbors, his family--father and two brothers, and about the fact that he's been a driver since he was 18 years old--he had to drop out of school to support his family in 10th grade because of his mother's death. He asked me what driving was like in America, and then about what there was to see in there--Rajasthan has beautiful forts and palaces and temples, he said, so what is there to see in America besides clean roads? (I was not sure how to answer-- all I could think about to see in America was the White House, which Vinod Bhaiyya was not very impressed with. So, I tried to tell him about Obama, who he had never heard about, and all the different types of people one can meet, and about college and education, but he was still unimpressed, so I turned the conversation back to his life. He confidently stated that Jaipur is the most beautiful city in India and in the world.)

I went home, slept for 2 hours, and went to class at 10am.

Over all, certainly a successful, perhaps a little too-eventful trip. Next on the list are Bharatpur/Agra, Haridwar/Rishikesh, and Ahmedabad!

Expect a post about my experiences with Indian attitudes, culture, and educational system sometime soon...