Jaisalmer + Desert Festival

Day 108 - 110.

We opened the curtains of our night bus to the sight of the sun glaring down over the medieval trading town of Jaisalmer in all its glory. It was a total change of landscape as we were now in the heart of the Thar desert. Located just outside the sandstone fort we arrived at Abu's place and were welcomed with warm open arms, the girls especially mind which in hindsight should have been an early sign of things to come.

We listened intently to Abu's life story over chai which begun as an 8 year old runaway desert child and ended as becoming the camel king of Jaisalmer, owning 53 camels and countless hotels he now swanned around in desert robes reciting this story to couch surfers from far and wide. Sadly it wouldn't be the last time we heard this story as it seemed to be proudly picked up and repeated by countless Indian hostel owners as their opening pick up lines ("You want to hear my story brother")

Putting the creepiness of our host behind us we headed out to the desert festival opening ceremony with Ranske, a new Dutch friend. The procession was more than we had hoped for and we found ourselves marching across the entire old city, through golden palaces and narrow bazaars arm in arm with the procession and drowned in confetti throughout. I've never taken so many Gopro vids but the madness just kept giving. A great start to the 3 days festivities.

Day 1 of the festival had a slightly surreal feel, hundreds of highly decorated camels, turban tying, moustache competitions and most of all thousands of colourful saris in the middle of this baron desert town. We stared on with a mixture of bewilderment, enjoyment and to be totally honest slight anguish for the poor camels involved.

Day 2 continued is this same fashion with a slightly escalating amount of craziness that now extended to camel polo and international tug of war. We took our seats in the stand and were joined by Emma and Grace a great English couple we had met the day before. It was to be myself and Emma that took to the stage for Tug of War with few expectations, certainly not aware we would both leave as heroes (in Indian hearts and minds at least).

A few thousand victory photos & TV interviews later we headed back to the fort to share a beer at sunset overlooking the city at our favourite spot with our favourite Indian, a young boy managing the most picturesque shop in the whole town, learning what English he could from our rather colourful conversations.

Day 3 saw us all moving hostel, the scales had finally tipped in favour of our safety vs the benefit of free accomodation, it was hard to topple given how frugal we have become of late but we kindly parted with Abu in favour of a good night's sleep without bolting the doors.

We spent our last day pre desert safari meandering around the fort by ourselves for what felt like the first time in ages. We haggled hard and left the Bazaars with a new wardrobe in hand for Limbster and one orange Turban for me (to compliment the beard of course), we rewarded ourselves with a long lunch at the top of the city planning potential future Phillipines adventures!

It was an early start for safari tomorrow, the 5 of us were to be joined by Nordeine, a German solo traveller we met that evening. We were to be sleeping under the stars from now on so we hit the hay early ready for adventures ahead.

P.s for the record limbster disputes that 5 items of clothing constitute a new wardrobe. I stand by my account.Baca selengkapnya