Jaisalmer - Desert and Town

The town of Jaisalmer is an odd place and the feeling I get here I only describe by equating it to a New England beach town-it is outstandingly picturesque; every time you turn a corner or simply tilt your head and the light changes slightly you have the urge to take yet another picture even though photos do little to capture the enormity of the beauty you see.  Yet despite this enigmatic quality it is a tourist town catering towards the weekenders and summer crowd everything sounds new and exciting until you notice the patterns and lines begin to sound rehearsed and shops begin to look identical.  This is the feel of Jaisalmer, it caters to westerner tourists and puts on a very flashy show, but let me remind you I am in India not Cape Cod.  So here instead of nautical theme you find desert theme and for me desert is new and exciting and yes holds a bit of mystique.  The "it" thing to do from Jaisalmer is go on a camel safari.  Although the word safari conjures images of camouflage, Jeeps, and binoculars to my mind here it means ride a camel into the desert.  We decided to leave our palace for 1 night to sleep on the sand dunes under the stars.  A guide drove us to in a Jeep about an hour outside of the city to where we met our camels and 2 camel drivers (so I guide and 2 camel drivers just for Casey and I a pretty good attention ratio).   Along the way we stopped to "see a desert village" which was extremely uncomfortable as we drank chai while being stared at by 15 children who then ran after our Jeep asking for rupees and chocolates.  After this unfortunate detour we got to hop on the back of a camel and ride for a few hours lulled by the not so even rocking of the camels gait and the beat of the strong desert sun.  It was in fact quite spectacular.  After a few hours we arrives at some amazing dunes which were to be our campground for the night.  The desert is a fascinating place open and seemingly endless but certainly not still.  Steady winds pass through, moving out the air and exchanging it with cooler fresh oxygen and wildlife scurries about eating and singing to the wind.  When we set up camp our guides invited us to the "desert restaurant" they let us watch as they prepared chai, pakora, daal, rice, chaibati, and a mixed vegetable dish over the campfire.  We watched the sunset from the dunes and the sun huge and red have way to an enormous amount of starts, a desert sky certainly is unparalleled in my book.  Sleeping under the stars with a cool breeze on my face and warm blankets shielding the rest of me with the murmur of camels hanging about was delightful.  The next morning we rode our camels a few more hours met the Jeep and headed back to Jaisalmer.  The following day we went to the Fort which is really just a town within the town (this is the original section, remember, that the king left so his people would follow) it had the same touristy feel as the rest of Jaisalmer - beach town or desert mirage showing only that which the desert wishes to disclose and keeping the rest safely locked away and tricking your mind into not believing it exists. 

Note: I finished writing this in the Jaipur airport after taking an overnight train from Jaisalmer (AC3 not remarkable even though its a higher class, I personally would rather stick to SL) we are now going to fly south to Kochi and begin Phase 2 of our India Travels.