We arrived in Jaisalmer after what seemed like days on the train. We finally negotiated our way through the crowds of rickshaw drivers and managed to get a lift to the fort area of the city in the back of a jeep. The driver of the Jeep like everyone else in the city wanted to sell us a camel Safari, but we managed to make our excuses and get away.

Jaisalmer fort is a Golden colored sandstone fort built in the 12th century, it looks as if it grows skyward out of the surrounding desert. Much of the city is within the walls of the fort which is a maze of narrow cobble streets lined by ancient Haveli buildings. The inside of the fort is only accessible by foot so we had to negotiate our way through the streets until we found our hotel which we had phoned ahead to make a reservation. The hotel was located within an ancient Haveli style building which was built into the fort walls. From our room we had amazing panoramic views out of the fort, across the city below, and the desert beyond. The problem with staying in an ancient buildings as I was to find out (on numerous occasions) is that they weren’t built with 6ft tall western men in mind and my head was going to take a few knocks over the coming 2 days.

After checking in and chilling for a while we took a walk around the fortress and the city beyond. We wanted to book a Camel Safari, but were soon to become so confused by the amount of offers we were getting, which varied in price and content that we decided we needed to take our minds off it for a while. As we were walking through the city streets we came across just the thing a man offering us a ‘Bhang Lassi’ in the cities government licensed Bhang Shop. For those of you who don’t know 'Bhang' is a derivative of the marijuana plant and a 'Lassi' is a yogurt based drink. So we though, "Why not? gets us away from the Camel Safari touts". Anyway the Lassi turned out to be a big disappointment, we were both expecting to spend the next few hours walking around going 'Hey dude, check that out man, that’s sooo cool man!!" but in fact it had absolutely no mind altering affect what so ever. We walked for a bit more and then decided to go with camel safari offered to us by a restaurateur who’s restaurant we had stopped for lunchin earlier. The decision based on no other basis than the fact that the restaurant served a good chilled beer! (Must do a good Camel Safari then!!)

The Camel Safari we booked was for two full days and one night. We started the following morning at about 8.00am when we were picked up in a jeep and taken off in to the desert. As we drove away towards the desert village where we would meet our Camels and Guide, the view looking back at the city was amazing.

About an hour or so later we arrived in the desert village (a small collection of mud huts) and the guide started loading the two days supplies on to the back of the Camels. About another half an hour and we were off! striding in to the dessert on out trusty camels. Now!, this first half an hour of riding was a real treat but I can assure you that very soon the novelty of riding a strange shape animal soon wears off, and your thighs start to seriously ache.

After about two hours riding we stopped to look around a village, at this point Ennis and I both realised that we could no longer walk properly. As we hobbled into this primitive mud hut village (no electricity, no running water, roads, or sewerage system), it struck me that the only time these people come into contact with westerners would be when a Camel Safari stops at their village, they must think we are all a strange bow legged breed who cant walk properly.

Anyway there is only so much time you can spend looking around a village that consists of two mud huts before it starts to feel a bit uncomfortable (like we've outstayed our welcome) besides we soon ran out of pens and sun glasses to give them! So reluctantly we got back on the camels and headed deeper in to the dessert. We stopped again for lunch (all made by the guide with his bare hands which he had earlier been using to search the camel for ticks! Nice!) After lunch and a long rest under the shade of some trees, we then had a further two hour riding until we reached some sand dunes where we were to set up camp for the night (Camp consisting of laying blankets on the sand dunes and sharing our beds with numerous sand beetles (bit like cockroaches only bigger) and cricket type stick insects)

As we sat up on the sand dune with only our 15 litre’s of now boiling hot mineral water to drink, I turned to Ennis and said jokingly "you know what? I would kill for an ice cold bottle of coke" about two minutes later the Guide called up to us "hey the Pepsi man is coming" and sure enough an old and decrepit looking fella was walking towards us with a plastic bag full of cold drinks. How strange is that??? The guide then cooked again although I couldn’t bring myself to eat, I wasn’t sure whether it was the heat (45 degrees, and DOH! no sun cream), his earlier attempt at cooking which had left me feeling a ‘bit dodge’ to say the least, or his persistent singing of desert love songs. But one way or another I didn’t feel like eating.

The following day I realised it was none of the above, and it was in fact that I had after a mere 7days in India contracted my first dose of Delhi Belly, and I still had a full day of camel riding to do. I wont go in to details but bowel control with Delhi Belly is tricky at the best of times, on a camel it is near impossible! Anyway I managed to refrain from loosing control, ‘Just’. All I can say is "that was one very lucky camel'. It was especially bad toward the end of the day when we were running late and the guide decided it was time for the camels to run, 'Ooooh I can feel my stomach churning just thinking about it!'. We finally arrived back in Jaisalmer and I passed out for a few hours after visiting the toilet a few times and dosing my self up with Imodium. Ennis woke me to tell me we had an hour till our next train 'Grrrrrreat' an 8 hour overnight run to the Blue City of Jodhpur.

Despite the uncomfortable camel, and the illness, and the stolmoch craps etc etc etc.. I really liked Jaisalmer and would have happily spent longer here, but,
hey this travelling malarkey isn’t meant to be relaxing. Onwards and upwards.