Thar Desert and the Fort Palace

Breakfast is served.

The return journey.

A village we passed.

Gadhisar Lake.

Tilon ki Pol Gate.

Indian tourists playing royalty.

A section of the fort walls from the Palace.

The scale model of the fort.

My room, in the circular section with the little veranah.

Deepak, Babi and Sukhi.

Monday, March 26^th.

I had a fitful sleep. There are packs of dogs out here and they are quite territorial and guard their area with lots of barking and growling. They were active and barking at rival packs off and on through the night. Then early in the morning I was actually cold. I finally stirred at dawn and had to relieve myself in the desert, as there are no facilities here. My review to Intrepid would be to have the campsite dig a drop toilet, not just for our comfort, but to stop the litter of toilet paper all around the site.

We had a masala chai and then a basic breakfast of toast and jam, wheat porridge, orange sections, bananas and cookies. While we were eating it was interesting to watch the family of dogs who had claimed us and our camp as theirs, bark and chase away any new dogs that came by. I also saw a black beetle that I have often seen on BBC documentaries about the desert and an unbelievably colourful and well camouflaged grasshopper (why in the desert?).

Soon after we climbed onto our camels again and began the journey back. They took a different route this time and we travelled through the sand dunes for about 45 minutes to the two vehicles. I wound up with a slightly sore tush and tailbone. Then we drove back to the city. I had a quick shower to get rid of all the sand and then decided to take a tuk tuk to Gadhisar Lake. It was a short ride but beat walking in the 38-degree heat. The lake was originally constructed to provide water for the local people. It is surrounded by a few small temples. I stayed for about an hour watching some of the Indian tourists who were taking rowboat rides on the lake or dressing up in period costumes to look like the Maharaja and Maharani. Then I took a tuk tuk back again.

I walked up the entrance road to the Fort Palace Museum where I learned about the Maharajas who lived here. I had an audio guide that explained the various locations in this large palace. Inside was the silver eight lion coronation thrown, an armoury of old weapons, the women’s palace, various sleeping quarters and dining room as well as a rooftop that had a commanding view of both the whole fort and a panoramic view of the surrounding area and the city. I learned about the Jain religion and culture (see next post). There was also a scale model of the triangular shaped fort. It is a beautiful place and must have been very impressive in its day.

At the museum I learned that the fort is under threat from water. Water?? In a desert? Yup. Back in the day the local people had to walk to the local water source and carry a bucket back that they judiciously used for washing, cooking and cleaning, all with the same bucket recycled. Now with modern plumbing, instant water coming from taps and dozens of guesthouses with thousands of tourists taking showers, and dodgy drainage, the foundation of the fort is being undermined by water. Again, tourism is a double edged sword, more money coming in and more pressure on existing infrastructure.

After that I returned to my hotel, as I was very hot and tired, but my room was equally hot. So, I grabbed my laptop and headed to the reception area which is cooled by a big fan and the large vents in the floor that allow the heat to escape the building up through the three floors to the sky. It rains so seldom here that they don’t worry about rain coming in. In fact on the audio guide I listened to, it said that it was not unlikely that a new born would reach seven years old before seeing rain.

Later in the afternoon I took another walk out of fort and around its perimeter to get the afternoon light on the west facing wall where my room is located. It is really a spectacular and formidable wall.

When I got back I met up with the group again and Varsha invited me to join them for dinner. So, we all walked back out of the fort and to the heritage hotel called Nachna Haveli and its Saffron Restaurant. This is one of the fabulous mansions that the well healed in Jaisalmer built in the 1700’s. Now it is a heritage hotel and the part of the restaurant we visited was on the roof, which commands another great view of the city. I sat beside Sarah’s friend Penny and we talked about music, as she has gone to the Glastonbury Music Festival about nine years in a row. 

After dinner, when we got back to Deepak’s I went to the roof to have one last hot fruit custard and type up the day. Just then Varsha came up with a girlfriend who is tagging along on the trip. She asked if she could talk to me about travel. Who me? Of course. She has visited Britain to visit relatives and along with her job she now has the travel bug, but the problem is that she does not make enough money to travel. She wanted to know how to travel cheaply. She told me that she gets a 60 -70% discount if she travels with Intrepid, but she wants to travel to Italy and France with two friends. We talked about AirBnB, couching surfing, hostels, rail passes. She expressed frustration that the plane tickets are the same price for anyone and that her money is not worth nearly as much as the western countries, therefore the flights are very expensive, and are not included in the Intrepid trips. 

I asked her if her job is a well paying job for women in India (her friend is actually researching potential non traditional jobs for Indian women, like guiding). She said that it is but although she is very proud of Intrepid for paying her the same as the male guides, it is not a great paying job because there are periods of time when there is little work, like the blistering hot summer or the monsoon season, and she only gets paid when she works. That of course brought up the tipping subject. She expressed frustration that the passengers will read the whole itinerary and instructions very carefully except the tip part. She gets exasperated when they say they don’t have enough money for the tips. Varsha said that when she went to Britain she followed the tipping guidelines for restaurants there and for her to leave a three pound tip was a huge amount of money, but she did it, because she thought it was the right thing to do.

All of this made me think about a lot of things:

How lucky I am to be able to do what I do.

How lucky I am to have been born in Canada.

How hard it is for all of these guides to escort a group of privileged passengers around their country and to listen to them talk about all the places they have been, talk about all of the ‘things’ they have at home, and then hear them whine that they don’t have enough money for the tip, or make fun of or turn their noses up at something they see that is different from home.

How my talks about tipping to the groups I have travelled with, which sometimes get up the noses of my fellow travellers, are necessary for the guides to get what they are due. They need and rely on that extra money to tide them over the lean times, or to maybe allow them to do what all of us love to do. With my last trip I felt bad when I again upset a couple of people who didn’t want to give the suggested amount, but I no longer regret what I said. In fact I know it is the right thing to do.

I think that both Intrepid and GAdventures have to come to some solution for this problem, as their competition to have the cheapest trips benefit the travellers but penalize their guiding staff.