Jaisalmer

Day 5 and 6 was getting from Bikaner  to and touring Jaisalmer. I got up early in the morning, and I took some pics of the Palace\Hotel I was staying in before leaving to go deeper into the desert.

This is one of the many hallways. The Hotel\Palace is like a mini-museum. There are artifacts and historical paintings and pictures describing the history of the area.

 

In the previous post, I showed a pic of the outside of the Hotel\Palace. Here is an interior courtyard pic.

 

Before reaching Jaisalmer, we stopped by another Palace\Hotel, and I took some pics there.

 

This was a very beautiful hotel with a the lake while being in the middle of the desert. I continued to be surprised by the number of areas with large lakes while traveling deeper in to the desert.

About midway to Jaisalmer, we stopped for a rest on top of a large sand dune. I was talking with the owner, and I asked, "How big is this hill." He replied, "This is a dune, not a hill." This was my first lesson in desert lingo. In order not to offend anyone else I would ask locals if I'm on a dune or hill when I found myself climbing upwards on rough terrain.

 

 

My driver and I then continued heading for Jaisalmer which is called the "Golden City" because of the yellowish sandstone used to build the forts and palaces. There is a great link about the history here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaisalmer

I will let the link above fill you in on details, you will notice that Jaisalmer is fairly close to the Pakistan border. It relies on tourism for a lot of it's income. So, there are no security worries for foreigners. We passed a few military bases along the way, and tourists were everywhere.

Here is a pic of the room and my view out the window. My day was not over yet though as I was going to a temple area to see the sunset over the city.

After driving a few kilometers, I was able to take these pics during the sunset. This was an area where priests were buried. The level of priest could be determined by the size of the marker or the size of building in which the priest was buried.

 

While I was watching the sunset and taking pics. An old man sat down nearby and started playing some tunes. It was great to hear him play while being around the temples during sunset. It's as if you have gone back in time. Of course, history may be a place I'd like to visit, but I really don't want to live there - most people didn't live very long in ancient times.

 

 

The temple area overlooked the city and the fort. I would be visiting the fort the next day.

I also noticed a bunch of electricity making windmills on another "hill".

This was my favorite desktop pic.

Here is a night shot from the hotel room which was also on a "Hill". The had lots of lights shining on the fort. It was a great site.

The next day I took a tour of the city and the fort. I'm going to assume you read the Jaisalmer link I gave above at this point.

There was a lake area that supported the city, and I went there first.

 

 

Here is a temple that was by the lake.

I then went and explored the fort with a guide. This is a living fort, but you know that because you read the link...right. This is an inner courtyard. Because this is a living fort, there were a lot of sales people and performers. There was a girl walking back and forth on a tight rope. My guide told me not to buy anything as it was all junk.

The cows also performed as well, but I didn't have any feed. Otherwise, I may have been entertained by the local cow dances.

There were lots of Haveli's. If you don't know what a Haveli is, please read my previous posts. My guide told me that the stature of a person could be determined based on how ornate the craftsmanship was on the out side of the Haveli.

We then went to an overlook point on top of the fort wall.

 

 

Again, the history is in the link I gave. So, I'm not getting into details.

Our final fort stop was in front of the largest haveli owned by three bothers who had an export business. You could go look around at their stuff, which of course was for sale and not junk.

In the pic above, notice the guy in the red turbin in the lower right. He is currently attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest mustache. He will show it to you for a small price. I figured the cow dancing would be a better bargain, but I still didn't have any feed.

One of the things I was not able to show was the inside of a wonderful ornate temple. It was dark and enclosed which made it hard to get a good pic.

My next stop for Day 7 and 8 is Jodhpur. So, time to get some rest for another day of adventure and sight seeing.