Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is the most comfortable city I've been in here in India, I think because it is a smaller city, much of which is still very close to the old fort. It really fealt like a human city, not one overrun by cars yet. We had arrived the previous afternoon and declined the trip to the local park/lake in the afternoon. I suppose it might have been nice during the afternoon, towards sunset, but as it was, we got to see it fresh in the morning.

Where we arrived, my first thought was tourist trap. It looked like we would have to walk up a long walkway lined with vendors trying to hawk items we didn't want. Fortunately that wasn't the case. Along the way our guide bought a loaf of bread and I really expected to be feeding the ducks. As it was, we got to the lake and the guide explained that there were various locations along the lake shore for differnent castes and people. For instance the Brahmins had one section of the lake shore, another was reserved for the laborers like carpenters, etc.

He then explained that since the lake is a holy lake, even the animals living in the lake are holy, thus there is no fishing to eat. He got out the bread and started throwing it in the water, immediately there were hundreds of catfish swimming or should I say swarming along the lake shore, hoping to catch a morsel from our hands. The guide told us to be careful when throwing in the bread. He then recounted a story of one of his guests who had gotten so exhuberant about the teeming fish that she had her camera in one hand, and the bread in the other. And you guessed it, she tossed the camera in the lake. They did manage to retrieve it, but just imagine.

After the lake, we drove up to the fort entrance which is on a large hill overlooking the rest of the city. Jaisalmer fort is one of the largest in the world, and about a third of the residents of the city still live within its walls. You can see the actual entrance at the right of the photo. A large section of the actual palace had to be restored after a recent earth quake, and work is still going on. It is built with interlocking stone, no mortar. On the way in, there are a lot of vendors trying to hawk local arts and crafts, hats, cameras, camera accessories, and other things, but most of them were really friendly and not overly pushy.

Inside we saw not only the palace, from the outside, but we also visited a Jain temple. The Jains were very influential and wealthy along the Silk Road in India. This is one such location. The temple is beautifully carved and well maintained to this day. There was work ongoing inside one of the temples cementing the idols in place. The idols were beautiful, and if you know what to look for, you could tell them apart. They pretty much all looked similar to me. I found the carvings more interesting actually. This one was pretty popular, seems to be touched by many people. The place was very busy with tourists coming and going all the time, with intermittent worshipers coming too. Outside I got this picture of the ticket taker at the entrance. He was kept very busy with people coming and going into the two entrances of the two different temples he had to monitor both doors. But he did it with aplomb.

After visiting the temple we wandered around the fort a bit. The guide explained there is a tradition when someone in the family is getting married. You paint the invitation/announcement on the wall of the house for all to see. We saw several such announcements while wandering around in the fort city, and even outside the fort. This makes it easy, you don't have to worry that someone will come along and say, "you didn't invite me" as it is posted for all to see. He even explained how you can tell by what is painted whether it is a bride or groom to be. After wandering the city, and looking down on the walls to see the ammunition left for dropping on enemies (round stones all along the walls), we walked out of the fort and visited a silver smith. They had some truely lovely modern and antique pieces. We picked up a couple of nice items, and then headed off for lunch at "On The Rocks" for a delicious lunch with a nice view of the fort.

After this we vistited some of the Havelis of Jaisalmer, where we got to see the former prime minister's house and several others. They were incredibly carved out of stone. One house was done in a fashion by two competing architects so that both sides of the house were carved similarly, but always different too. Strong rivalry there. We got to go inside one, where there was a store on the second floor, selling artifacts to maintain the house for tourists to see. Truely facinating to visit.

Then it was time to leave Jaisalmer for our excursion to the desert and Camel Rides.