Jaisalmer

Exiting the train station at Jaisalmer we were both immediately accosted by hoards of guesthouse touts - by far and away the most touts we've seen anywhere in India, or anywhere else on this trip for that matter. It was quite frustrating to be honest, and Sarah, who was taking charge of finding the accommodation, had to move back into the train station to try and get her bearings before venturing out into the touts again.

As usual we just wanted to get a tuk-tuk to the general accommodation area, in this case Ghandi Chowk. After pushing away a few touts (I literally had to stop, glare and clearly say 'Don't TOUCH me!', to the more aggressive of the touts), we got into a jeep with 2 local lads. They start the usual rigmarole of trying to take us somewhere else (where they would get a commission), but Sarah is adamant that they just take us where we wanted to go. They stop after a bit and tell us we have arrived, but Sarah had been following our progress on the map and knew we weren't anywhere near our destination. So she firmly told them to keep going, which they did for a bit more. Again we knew it wasn't right, but by now we were at a major landmark, and so could make our own way. We hopped out of the jeep, grabbed our bags and told the lads we weren't paying them a cent, which they seemed to just accept (I thought Sarah had originally offered them too much money anyway, but in the end it cost us nothing!).

So we strolled the remaining 5 minutes to a guesthouse recommended in the book. Sarah was a bit flustered after the whole tout experience, and just wanted to take this place straight away, but I ran into a place literally across the road. It turned out to be 60% cheaper, so ignoring Sarah's protests we went there. It (the Peacock Hotel), turned out to be a fine place - Sarah was just worried that they would hassle us to do a camel safari with them, but they didn't.

So settled in and showered, we had a great lunch at the fancy Saffron restaurant just down the road, and then checked out a few places for camel safaris. They're all pretty much the same of course, so we went with the people Sarah had originally wanted to stay with, thereby spreading our custom around a bit.

Next day we hired bikes in the morning, and the first stop was breakfast at a nice Tibetan restaurant within the grounds of the town's famous fort. The views from here were fantastic, and after our momo snack it was back on the bikes and using the Internet to check out onward train options. With the train information (www.cleartrip.com is a really great site!), Sarah rode out to the station to book the tickets (there are no direct trains from Jaisalmer to Bharatpur so we had to change at Jaipur). After the internet, I rode out to meet Sarah at the station, where she had the tickets all sorted and was chatting to a strange English traveller.

Then it was a leisurely ride out to a couple of local dusty museums and a very picturesque lake, before heading back to the fort and checking it out properly. We didn't bother with the steep entrance price for the museum itself, as we've seen loads of them now, so instead we parked the bikes and just strolled around the fort and explored the little alleyways, laneways and viewpoints along the ramparts. We stopped off for a lovely refreshing beer at one of the rooftop restaurants overlooking some Jain temples before heading back to the bikes. Sarah was tired at this stage and just headed back, while I rode out to a viewpoint up a hill.

The viewpoint was completely deserted when I arrive, and was lovely and peaceful. But as sunset approached small groups of tourists arrived (having been ferried up in air-conditioned vans of course), for their alloted viewing opportunity before being herded off again. Meanwhile I chatted with a group of local kids who had been playing cricket nearby. They never asked for a rupee or a school pen, and it was great just messing about with them before they all headed off for their dinners.

After leaving back the bike, we had dinner that night in the fancy Trio restaurant, again just down the road from our hotel, before an early night.

Next morning was an early start for our desert camel safari. We walked up the road to leave our rucksacks in storage, met the other 2 couples (1 French, 1 English), loaded ourselves into the jeep and drove off for about an hour to meet our camels (nobody was interested in stopping off at cenotaphs on the way).

The camels just happened to be waiting for us on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and about 5 minutes after stopping we were all aboard our camels and on our way. You don't need much by way of instruction for camel riding, and I really found it much more comfortable than horse-riding, although that impression is probably helped by the heavily padded saddles they use.

Basically that day and the next were pretty identical. We'd ride for 1.5 hours, then stop for a rest, having lunch after the second stop. Lunch would be followed by a long rest period during the hottest part of the day, and then we'd ride again for another 2 jaunts of 1.5 hours.

Mostly we just ambled along at a walking pace, occasionally going into a cantor, which again was much more comfortable and stable-feeling that horse-riding. I just happened to be on the lead camel, Mr. Buddha (an appropriate name for my camel I thought), most of the time, with Sarah leading twice. This gave me the great advantage of having unobstructed vistas in front of me the whole time, and I really enjoyed the peace and tranquilty of the desert landscapes (apart from the guide's occasional 'singing', which was actually quite cool). We only encountered pure sand dunes a few times, and had lots of changing conditions from scrub, to rocks and stones, to gravel and sparse trees, but most importantly we very rarely saw any humans, or signs of humans, and never saw any other tourist groups at all.

The first evening we camped literally on the side of some sand dunes not long before dark, sipping a couple of beers from a guy who just appeared out of nowhere on his camel. That night started with clear skies, and the stars were out in abundance, although we had a quarter moon which was quite bright. By the time the moon set, the sky had clouded over, so we never got a really dazzling display of stars. We all got to see a number of satellites though, and a few shooting stars (the last of which was the brightest and longest-living shooting star I've ever seen!).

The next day everyone was pretty saddle-sore (the English guy, Rhys, had to walk for large stretches), but I didn't find it too bad - it reminded me of the aches and pains I always associate with skiing. Overall I really enjoyed the 2-days, and although 2 days was enough, it wouldn't have taken much to push into another few days.

So right on time at 6pm our pickup jeep arrived and dropped us back to our hotel. We had a lovely dinner chatting with the English couple at Saffron again (they plan on starting their own business when they get back to England, so the chat was getting all 'meaning of lifey', which I love). Then it was back to the hotel for a free transfer to the train station for our overnight trip back to Jaipur and onward to Bharatpur.