Jaisalmer

The next day was mostly a driving day as we headed to Jaisalmer, 6 hours away. Our driver took us to yet another shop where he or his company gets kickbacks for taking tourists. They all give little demos about how the products are made. Some of them, like the marble shop’s demo appeal to the art teacher in me but mostly they just feel like you are watching your own personal infomercial and everything they are selling costs way more than anywhere that locals shop. We did end up buying some textiles at one place anyway. It is still much cheaper than in the states and the quality was decent but it is frustrating feeling like you are constantly being ripped off. Our driver always seems to tell us we shouldn’t buy anything without his approval and that anything we buy on our own is too expensive. Half the time it is cheaper to go with his suggestions and half the time he takes us to tourist traps that are way more expensive than elsewhere. Anyway, I was mostly ok with him until the little incident where he offered Danny cold medicine that turned out to be opium. I was really upset. Anyone who knows Danny and me knows we aren’t the type of people who would try that stuff. In the hotel room, after I googled the effects of eating opium and found that it wasn’t quite as scary as I thought, we decided to chalk it up to a cultural experience – as suggested by our friend Erica via facebook. It actually isn’t even illegal in India and it didn’t seem to have much impact on Danny other than making him feel more relaxed which did actually stop him from coughing so much. I’m pretty sure next time we’ll just opt for lots of fluids and bed rest though.

Since I was feeling less than thrilled with our driver I really wanted to just go around on our own the next day in Jaisalmer. We booked a full day camel safari – which our driver said was way overpriced at about $50 a person including all meals. It was really pretty. We went really far out in the countryside by this tiny village that was only about 50 kilometers from Pakistan. The village was small and undeveloped but they said about 500 people lived there. Someone said 80% of the population of India lives in tiny villages. The camel drivers met us and the two guys from Argentina who went with us in the village. We walked along the desert and stopped along the way to where they made lunch and we all rested. It was pretty unspoiled land with sand dunes and lots of tame animals like sheep and camels wondering around. The camel I rode was kind of gross, he kept making weird gurgling noises and sticking out his tongue. The drivers said it was because he was in heat and wanted to find some female camels… lovely. They also made lots of really bad jokes relating to going off to fight the Pakistanis and how crazy desert life is… (not very). It was a really beautiful place. The guys who went with us slept out under the stars but we headed back to the hotel after dinner at around 9 pm. It is really nice to get out of the cities and watch a sunset.