Jaisalmer

In the desert of Thar lies the golden city. Which is not golden, but yellow brown because of the sandstone used to built the impressive fort in the middle of the city. It is the last fort in India which still serves to many people to live. It was built to

serve as protection against the Muslim aggressors from the west. Nowadays Muslims and Hindus live peacefully next to each other. But inter religious marriages are a tabu. The marriage system is pretty ugly anyway. All marriages are pre arranged by the families. Nobody is allowed to have sex before the big day. Thats why you have all these young Indian men ru nning around and tyring to get one of the "easy" Western girls. Which makes it very exhausting to travel as a wo men in India as I witnessed at many occasions and about what I heard many funny stories - some actually not so funny. On the nig day, a caravan goes through the whole city with music in the front, people dancing behind it, the older family members follow, the sp ouse on a horse wearing the clothes of a Maharaja and then the generator. These people go around town until they end up late in the evening at the house of the bride. Then the spouse goes inside and does what he never was able to tra

in before.
Jaisalmer lies on a historic route of camel traders. Because of that camels are very m uch part of daily lives - and tourist tours! That's why we decided to go to the desert with some camels and a guide. The guide it self aka "the desert man" lives in the desert village of a 100 people , is Muslim, as been to the city only 4 times in his life, sings beautifully and is a very pleasant character. They only marry within their village - since ever. He and two young boys took us - a group of six - to the dunes and some desert villages which are a one day trek with th

e camels away. But I walked half of the distance since the camel are hard on the balls.
The Thar desert hasn't seen any rain for 3 years. Locals suffer from the drought in any way. It is definitely a hard life to live. From 11 til 15 o'clock there i s absolutely nothing you c an do besides sleeping beneath one of the trees only to wake up after a few minutes because of the heat. The food consisted out of Dal and Chapati - the Indian main.
We spent the night in the sand of the dunes and listened to the stories and the s inging of the desert man. He was almost the same age as me, but looked like 45 years old, because of his hardship.
We ended the tour a bit earlier then planned because we were not eager to spent the afternoon with camel farts and the 52 degree. So we returned to our hotel which has a pool. The water has not been changed for 6 months, but it was still very enjoyable. Then we left for Jodphur.