The World in 100 Words or Less

16 hours after I had passed out do to some mystery sickness, I awoke to find it was 6 am the next day. I had slept right through and I felt great.  I still preceded carefully, taking more ibuprofen, etc. and deciding to stay at the hotel for the day and relax with a nice pot of chai.

As I opened my eyes, and then the blinds of the windows in my room, I was greeted by a beautiful blue sky and a magnificent Golden City.  Jaisalmer was once an oasis rising out of the sand, buildings cut out of golden sandstone standing like mirages in the desert.  Today, the city is split between a military and tourist economy.  Its location close to the border of Pakistan makes it a strategic location and fly-bys of American built planes are an every day norm.  But it is hard for the occasional plane to detract from this city.  My windows look out noto the whole city, especially its masterful Fort.  The Fort is built on top of a hill that is no longer visible.  The walls of the fort top off some 80m above the surrounding land; it is a big building.  The sun both makes it shimmer and softens the rough exterior at the same time.  Its amazing that invaders were able to defeat this fort.  There is no way to directly attack it, that’s for sure.  All one could do was surround it and wait til they starved to death inside or surrendered, neither very enjoyable.  Today, the fort is home to over 1,000 residents, a dozen or so hotels, a gorgeous palace and a least 1 million stores.  The palace is the forts tallest structure, allowing for 360 degree views of Jaisalmer.  It is a breathtaking site, looking off into the distance where buildings vanish into swaths of sand and brown shrubs. Almost more beautiful than the view are the intricately designed walls and balconies of the palace.  They exude wealth, and at the same time are representative of how this empire was once destroyed.  Slowly, but surely, invaders chipped away at the Maharajas civilization.

I have been in Jaisalmer for some 5 days now.  I wasn’t even planning to come here.  Good thing though.  I had actually planned to go to Varanassi, which was recently bombed ( probably as back lash to a particular President’s actions in India, thanks Bush).  This town is full of interesting peoples and things to see.  I have spent my days shopping for Rajasthani rugs-i’ve even bought a traditional shirt- and playing cards with Nick and Andy.  Altogether it’s been a good time.  It’s very interesting to just walk around the streets and talk to people.  The views of life here ni the desert are much different than in the cities.  People are much more laid back and in some situations, life is even harder.  Water is definitely hard to come by normally.  It makes me feel like a real prick when I look in the back of the hotel and see a fat lady swimming in the pool, the water splashing out and being absorbed by the sand.

So it doesn’t rain in the desert, right? Wrong. For two days straight there was pretty consistent rain.  The locals loved it, good luck, they said.  The lake and resevoirs filled up and a cool air brought in by a tumultuous storm enveloped Jaisalmer.  We all had a great time playing cards on the roof of the hotel battling each other and making sure the cards didn’t blow off to never be found again at the same time.  Unfortunately, the tourists who had gone out on camel safaris didn’t fare as well.  They were sleeping in cotton tents and cotton sleeping bags.  Woops.

I’ve been jumpin around a lot in this installment, but it seems to be suiting me well so I’ll continue.  About 5 days agao Nick lent me his copy of The Kite Runner, a novel I hear is pretty popular around the world right now.  For good reason too.  It’s an excellent story about afghanistan and all of the human emotions.  I finished it in 2 days i was so engrossed.  And, how appropriate that I go onto the roof of the hotel to look out onto Jaisalmer and see two kids flying kites on the roof across the street.  I immediately felt the urge to join in.  I talked to the restaurant manager who was kind enough to take me to a place to buy kites.  I bought two and a roll of string, all for about 25 cents.  We spent the rest of the day flyings the kites on the roof.  They were th simple variety: two crossed sticks holding on a thin piece of plastic, golden in color.  Flying them made me feel young again, and considernig the crowd we developed on the street below the hotel, i found the kids loved them too.  Once in awhile the kite would free itself from the string floating away into a nearby tree, or sometimes, if they were lucky enugh, into the hands of an awaiting child.  TO see the smiles on their faces made me glow golden as well.  I bought ten and passed them out to all of the kids along with enuogh string for the whole lot. The next day kites were flying from all of the roof tops in the neighborhood and all I could do was smile.  That day the kits out- numbered the planes of war. How appropriate it was.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 11th, 2006 at 1:43 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.