Jaisalmer - The Golden City

We woke up in Jaisalmer at 5:30am and took a rickshaw to our hotel. We went to bed and got a few more hours of sleep before having breakfast on the roof terrace overlooking the city of Jaisalmer. Our hotel was in the wall of the Jaisalmer fort - the second oldest fort in Rajasthan and the oldest living fort in India.

We walked to our friends' hotel to meet up with them before heading out to the desert.

Once in the Thar Desert, we met our camels and took a walk until sunset. We were about 70km from the Pakistan border.

Later, we were entertained during dinner with music and dancing. The stars were so bright and the moon was just beginning to wane.

Then, we went to bed in our little tents.

In the morning, we were brought coffee and had an early breakfast before heading out on our camels once more.

We said goodbye to our camels and headed back to Jaisalmer. Here's Lalu, my camel.

Once back in Jaisalmer, we did some jewelry and textile shopping and admired the Haveli.

I got one ring for free. It is a puzzle ring with four parts. Here's how the conversation went:

Man: "It's a puzzle ring. If you can put it together in less than ten minutes..."

Me: "I can have it for free?"

Man: "Uh, alright."

--About 3 minutes later.--

Me: "I did it! I can have it for free now."

Man: "Well, no..."

Me: "That's what you said."

Man: "Alright."

I did buy some jewelry from him as well so I'm sure he made his money back. It's a nice story to go with my ring though. I haven't been able to put the dang thing together in less than ten minutes since then though.

For dinner, we met up with our other friends again and had beers and momos before saying goodbye to them. They were catching the train south that night while we stayed on one more night at our hotel.

We had breakfast on the rooftop again before checking out more Jain temples and the fort's museum.

Later we took another rickshaw to the station to catch our overnight train back to Jodhpur.

More photos at flickr.

--Sarah--