Post #80 - December 30, 2012 - Jaisalmer, India

What we did: Camel ride to Jaisalmer, shopping, overnight bus to Udaipur

Budget: 3500R/$70; Spent:1330R/$27 

Woke up to a cup of masala chai - tea. It was boiling hot and very tasty. The family's very cute dog snuck into our hut several times throughout the night but we shoed it off. During the night while we were sleeping he found his way to our hut again and slept at our feet most of the night. He too was trying to find a warm place to sleep. Made us miss Pacolino.

Neither of us had the greatest sleeps ever, but we were rested enough. We enjoyed a breakfast of boiled eggs, toast, bananas, and oranges. Jeff still didn't feel like eating much, but had a couple bananas. While we were eating a man showed up and played a beautiful flute-like instrument for the baby boy. The people we were staying with are so tough. It was freezing in the morning, but they were up way earlier than us working and wearing less clothing than us. What babies we are.

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While Jeff was off taking pictures of camels, an older lady, who I'm not sure how she's related to the family, approached Patty and asked her for our blankets saying it was very cold for them living there. Before we left, Patty ended up giving one blanket to her and the other to her son. It looked like they really appreciated it, and they certainly needed them. It is a bloody cold place!

The ride back to our car ride was shorter than yesterday, but it was very nice. It was colder because it was morning, but very enjoyable. Camels are beautiful creatures. Jeff spoke with our guide for some of the ride back. He explained that this was their busy season but they had not received much business so far. He was a proud man and tough one but he was also very kind to us. His nephew Wassid who was also on the trek with us was tough too. He didn't smile much and was difficult to read. On our way back we saw two kids on camels running through the desert chasing each other. It looked like fun. What a different life they live here.

We rode for about an hour, hopped in a taxi, and drove back to the hotel. We had a couple things to do before we left, including buying a thick blanket for tonight's overnight bus ride to Udaipur. We were not going to allow the past to repeat itself, so we set out immediately in search of a blanket. In the second shop we were successful, though we had two bad experiences at shops. One guy completely ignored Patty's questions and barely made eye contact with her. He was trying to sell us a big fancy blanket for 5000R ($100). The price was absurd. We explained we only needed a simple blanket for a couple times use and that price was out of the question. Patty explained to him that the hotel owner had told us that we could get a decently warm blanket for about 1000R. He then proceeded to say the hotel was misguiding us. Patty piped in and said "oh but you're going to tell us the truth right?". He listened to her after that. Patty then said "we're obviously in the wrong store" and then we walked the heck out of there. The guy we ended up buying the blanket from wasn't much nicer. He was grouchy and threw several blankets at our feet and would not budge on the price of 500R. We made an offer and he refused to budge. Patty then just walked out and he called back to Jeff. We ended up getting the blanket for 350. The vendors we encountered in Jaisalmer up until that point were definitely not the nicest folk. 

After this, we grabbed some lunch at the Italian restaurant we had been to a couple days prior. The meal was OK. Nobody in India seems to know how to make authentic Italian. It always has a hint of Indian flavour. Jeff ate too much and felt ill after.

We rushed back to the hotel, packed up our things,  and got in trouble with the hotel manager for being late (we had told him we'd only be an hour!), and rushed out the door. There was a moment of panicking when we couldn't find our bus tickets, but they turned up inside Patty's suitcase. 

We arrived in plenty of time for the bus. It was scorching hot inside. The bus operators wanted us to check our bags and pay a fee for it, but we snuck our bags on a hid them in our sleeping compartment. Before entering the bus a worker made it sound as if we had no choice but check our luggage which was not true since on our last bus ride we had no issues loading them on the bus with us. Two Asian women saw that we had our bags with us and we're pretty upset that they were forced to pay to check theirs in the trunk. 

The ride began warm, but cooled off quickly as the sun began to set. We stopped at a number of places along the way, but all we bought was some chips and a Sprite. At one of the small villages we stopped at a bunch young boys were selling street food served in newspaper to the travellers on the buses. On the bus across the street from us there was a lady who wanted to buy something from one of the boys. The 1st boy had handed her one of his items but it looked as though she had already decided to buy from the 2nd boy. She tried handing the 1st boy's item back so that she could pay for the other's boys items. But the 1st boy insisted she buy from him. The 2nd boy approached her with a bag of things and she paid him while the other boy started shoving him and the lady was in the middle of it all still holding the money. Somehow the 2nd boy got his hands on the money she owed him. This quickly escalated into an all out brawl between the two. We were terrified that one of them was going to get pushed onto the road.  On two instances the boys began fighting and had to be broken up by a mob of other guys. Patty felt bad for the 2nd boy who was crying and had done nothing wrong so she called him over and gave him some money. Sad seeing these boys so desperate.

Early in the bus ride, we watched a movie called Dredd, which is a remake of Sylvester Stalone's Judge Dredd from a number of years back. It was ultra violent, but actually quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, our computer ran our of batteries with only five minutes left in the movie! But the final climax had mostly finished so we weren't too upset. 

After the movie, we took out our blanket, which turned out to be extremely warm, and turned in for the night, hoping against hope that we would have a more restful night than our previous overnight bus!