Travel Diaries #Jaisalmer #Post1

...continued from the last post

I didn't realize this post would turn out to be this long but since this was the best part of the trip, I wasn't able to cut it short. Hope you will love reading it till the end :)

Day 5: Jaisalmer – the starry night!

The most delightful part of the trip was still about to come. We reached Jaisalmer early morning around 6 am. Jaisalmer station isn't big but the view seemed royal. It reminded of the famous daily soap on TV Balika Vadhu. I’d seen such views only in that serial. Now, they were LIVE in front of my eyes! We reached our hotel at 7 am - Mystic Jaisalmer. It was Matt’s choice. He had stayed here in his last trip and was all gaga over it. This place is run by a Muslim – Ashraf who is an Osho Follower and has an ascent which makes you feel he is a foreigner. He is well traveled and in off season, travels abroad (What a life Sirjee!). The rooms were quite good and lavish, that too at an economical rate. And the roof top café of this place was awesome. We first went up there to capture beautiful early morning views. 

7 am views from Mystic Jaislamer

The Dwyers used to get extremely happy and occupied the moment they would find a good wi-fi connection. They were  carrying phones but not any Indian number. So during our train and road journeys, Matt would sometimes say, “Swati, Hotspot?” (Meaning can you turn out tethering of your phone so that we could access Wi-Fi). And even though I wish to say no at times, I just couldn't. Damn friendship!:D

I was looking forward to visit the Sam Sun Dunes on a camel ride with a magnificent view of the sunset with an optional night stay plan. Ashraf arranged the night safari for us. Camel ride , dinner and breakfast with an overnight stay in the desert with a folk entertainment too! Whoopy! I was a little skeptical on the safety part but since the hotel was arranging it and Matt knew the guy, I was in. So we were 7 of us, along with the driver "Ekkay", in the jeep. Along with 4 of us were 2 Bengalis and 1 European. The European Lad, in early 20s, seemed filthy rich and had been travelling the world since past 1 year. (Again, what a life Sirjee!)The road till the desert was a good one, with a good drive on the wide road.

Kuldhara Village

Village Kuldhara and Sam Dunes
On our way, Ekkay stopped at Kuldhara .The place is an abandoned village. The story goes that The Paliwals were harassed by the local Samant or the ruler and were paying huge amounts of money in the form of taxes to them. But one fine day,  the ruler apparently set his eyes on one of the girls in the community, possibly the Chief’s daughter .  The Paliwals were given no choice in the matter and they had just a day to accept his proposal. Overcome by remorse and in desperation, the entire community left their homes behind, cursing the king and escaped in the death of the night. We didn't find anything special about the place except the story. So after a quick glance, we moved on. The camels were waiting for us :D

So the journey to the desert began on the camels. I've never done a came ride before and as much as I enjoyed it, my bumps suffered too! Lol. We reached the dunes before the sunset. AND the exotic desert stretch was fabulous! The moment I got down, I took my slippers off and went for a good romantic walk with myself and sat in the sand to watch the sunset! I thought - if this was the beginning, how exciting the stay is gonna be! Perhaps that was a miscalculation. Hehe. I thought we would live in some tents or would have some charpai to sleep.  But it was a simple arrangement but that's what turned out to be the fun part. After the sunset, I tasted camel milk (it's sweet guys). The folks who'd got us on camels were the ones who would cook and make arrangements for us. They gave us evening tea and it tasted really good! Soon it started getting darker and we lit a bonfire. Till this time, everything seemed perfect. 

Matt Dwyer

Britt Dwyer

But as it started getting darker, I started getting nervous. I mean only the bonfire for light, we sat on a blanket and we were instructed that beetles could come in from anywhere and that they don’t bite and all we had to do was to shoo them away! Sounds easy but I hate creeping and crawling stuff. And beetles I would still manage, what’s the surety that nothing else would come up at night? A snake? A Lizard? Phones weren't working there and if you had to pee you had to go behind a bush. After a while , I was like “Ok fine. Let’s see what’s in store.” The wisdom in me started to pop up “If God has bought you to it, he will take you through it!” :P :P

Me and my Dholu :)

After the dinner, the locals played some folk music for us. It was funny but equally entertaining. 

Around midnight, we started preparing our so called beds to sleep. A quilt in the sand as bed and another one to cover yourself. What a luxury! The beetles I guess were waiting for the night to come out and attack :P Britt was the safest since she slept between me and Matt who would protect her from both sides. Haha. Lying down and watching the sky was ecstasy. I don’t think I can describe those moments in words. Utter silence of the night….no sign of humans for kms away except us.. desert illuminating subtly in the lights of the stars…millions of them radiating like diamonds…it seemed they were conversing with me..and we were interacting in some unspoken language. A spiritual experience – nothing mattered. Just me and the stars. Even the me did not matter :) :) I kept gazing for a while, with the hope that I may see a shooting star. Didn’t knew when I slept off gazing, would wake up again in a while with the same hope and the night went by like this.

And a beautiful morning was waiting for me :) Next Post 

Keep Smiling :)
Swati

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