From Heaven to Hell

 Cows, cows, cows and cows...  

 He is cleaning dried poop off the cow.

 I love the Rajastan turbans.

Goodbye to Deepak, Babi and Sukhi of the hotel and the camp.

 I got it! Five on a bike.

Goodbye Fort Jaisalmer, on the way to the airport.

Tuesday, March 27^th.

When I got up I had the chef special hotel breakfast of juice, coffee, porridge, toast and jam and a banana ‘pancake’. Then I decided to go out for one last walk around the fort. 

First, I walked around the maze of fort streets and then I retraced last night’s route so that I could see it in the light and watch the goings on of the local people on the street and in the little markets. There were cows everywhere. They just lay around and everything and everyone goes around them. I came across the Mandir Palace which is one of the beautiful houses of the rich from a few hundred years ago. Today it is a heritage hotel and restaurant.

At 9:30 I went back to the hotel, packed up and settled my bill. I paid for two nights accommodation, two dinners, one lunch, the camel safari and desert camp, and airport pickup and drop off, and the total price was: 6465 rupees, or $128.29 CAN and the return flight cost me $200. So, it was a worthwhile and affordable excursion. Then I had Sukhi drive me to the airport. On the way, I finally got a photo of five people on a motorcycle and a couple of distance shots of the fort on the hill. It was sad to leave, I love Jaisalmer and would happily stay longer or return at some point.

This airport is small and brand new. It is sobering to think that this airport was not open when I left Canada in August and there were no flights to Jaisalmer. It has only been open about five months.

When I arrived in Delhi I had planned to pick up John’s laptop that he had inadvertently left at security in terminal 2 at Delhi airport when he flew home. I landed in terminal 1 and had to take a shuttle bus to terminal 2 to the airport lost and found. It took a bit but I managed to get to the terminal and find it. I met up with a young woman and a man who ran the office. I explained what I was after and the first thing she asked for was the five digit reference code that they provided him when he called the airport to report his loss. In typical John/Joe laissez faire, the blind belief that things will sort themselves out, we had screwed up. He had neglected to provide me with that number on the three documents he e-mailed me (a scan of his passport, his boarding pass and the form that they e-mailed him that he had to fill out providing a description of the laptop and giving permission for me to pick it up). In his defence the form did not ask for the reference number. I blindly had the three sheets printed and presented them. I did not check back to an e-mail he sent me two weeks ago that did include the number. Anyway, the woman was not going to give me the computer without the number. She couldn’t believe that I did not have a cell phone and couldn’t provide me with an internet connection so I could check the old e-mail. The laptop was dead so we couldn’t power it up to see John’s picture which is on his desktop…blah, blah, blah. Thankfully the woman finally let me connect to her personal ‘hotspot’ and I found the number on the old e-mail. Believe it or not, she told me they get on average 3-4 laptops turned in daily and most of them are silver. So, after providing my passport, and signing innumerable forms I walked out with his laptop. Now what to do with it?

Then I hired a cab and gave him the Pooja Palace Hotel card that I had and away we went. The traffic was horrendous and chaotic and took well over an hour to get to the neighbourhood. But, then it took another half hour of him trying to navigate the narrow, congested and crowded streets. He had to stop and ask tuk tuk drivers repeatedly for directions. A GPS might have helped.

When I finally arrived at the Pooja Palace Hotel, I asked for my room 107 key and the guy couldn’t find it. Then I noticed my bag behind reception. He told me that they never got my voucher from Intrepid providing proof of payment, (which I knew Denise had sent them) for the room for the four nights so, they took my bag out so that I would not have to pay for the room (as per our arrangement). Then he gave me a different room. I decided to revisit the Feast eatery where I had dinner the last time I was here, and where the young local middle class Indians eat. I navigated the filthy litter strewn streets and crossed six lanes of traffic to reach it. While eating it suddenly dawned on me that they had probably booked ‘my’ room for three nights I was in Jaisalmer to someone else. When I went back I confronted the desk clerk and he admitted that they had. I said that wasn’t right and demanded a refund. He said he had to contact someone, so I went to my room and talked to Denise, who then contacted Intrepid and explained. They phoned the hotel who admitted what they did, and Intrepid refunded my money to my card. So, as it turned out, after trying to cancel those nights through the hotel and through Intrepid, I didn’t have to pay for the three nights I was in Jaisalmer after all. I went to bed full and happy.