Leaving from Udaipur to Jaisalmer, we broke the journey up with a quick stopover in Rajasthan’s second largest city, Jodhpur.
Known in the guidebooks as the blue city, Jodhpur’s old town is just that, bright blue. The caste of Brahmin’s have chosen to paint their houses blue which makes wondering around the old streets interesting enough for an afternoon. We were even invited in for a tour of one of the brahmin homes by a local man who was clearly very proud of his residence and of his city. Some choose to romantisize over the blue city but today it’s huge, chaotic and very dirty with open sewers everywhere.
One night here was enough for us and we chose to move on to Jaisalmer, an oasis town in the far west of India’s Thar desert, often called the golden city due to the honey brown fort overlooking the city. Jaisalmer is as far west as you can go in India before reaching Pakistan and between them lies the Great Thar Desert. Jaisalmer is on most Rajasthan itineraries for it is the launching off point of camel treks lasting from 1 night to 14 day journeys. We had planned to take a safari in another nearby town due to the sheer popularity of the activity in Jaisalmer but after discussing with our hotel we didn’t want to go to the main Dunes of Sam we were booked to leave in two days with a U.K. couple who were teaching in Taiwan.
While we waited to depart, our days were spent wondering around the mid evil streets of the infamous Fort which is slowly sinking into the sand and enjoying sunsets on rooftop restaurants. After traveling so frequently in the days prior, Jaisalmer provided a well needed rest.
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