North India - Jaisalmer and the desert!

Jaisalmer, still in Rajasthan, was the third city on our journey through the North. Even though we had seen a billion things already we were still equally exited about the new place. The busride from Jodhpur had been exhausting, sightseeing in the morning followed by 8 hours in a bus. And we didn't have time for a lot of stops like earlier because we had to reach our destination before the night with its darkness and danger of highway robberies arrived.

We did have time for one stop on the way - the sand dunes in the desert! As the sun was about to set we passed a couple of wonderfully untouched sand dunes in the middle of nowhere! We managed to convince Mithun, our travelguide, that we needed to stretch our legs, and that there were no better place than here.














In jaisalmer we had a nice hotel but most of us were to tired to do anything else that sleep in the evening. But the next morning we again got up early because our sightseeing program was packed! We started out at an artificial lake that was made to provide clean drinkingwater to the people of Jaisalmer.

There was A LOT of catfish in that lake, and when you threw out a bit of bread they would be lying so close in the water that it looked like it was only fish and no water!




In Jaisalmer We went inside the city fort, And inthere we entered a couple of jain temples. They were small but beautiful, and while we were in there a small group of nuns (or whatever the hindu-ones are called).




We had a lot of fun taking amazing photos in those wonderful settings. Like a dream!


















After all of this we took the bus a ouple of hours outside Jaisalmer to our new hotel - a desert hotel - all the 'rooms' were actually tents and in the afternoon we went for a desert safari riding camels. It was awesome even though it was pouring down from above. I was on the camel with Riina and we had so much fun!!! In the evening we had a traditional dinner and danced with unaks (men dressed like women) All in all a great day!

Home (in Mumbai) again

This will not be a long blog post, Im very tired after 36 hours in a train with a bad cold and topped with a rotary meeting 3 hours after my arrival yesterday. Just wanted to let you all know that I am back after 18 fantastic, wild, wonderful, funny, exhausting, hilarious, crazy and beautiful days in Northindia. We were first in Rajasthan (Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur) then we went to Delhi and we saw the Taj Mahal in Agra, we went further on to see the Ganges river at Haridhwar and last, but certainly not least we went to Amritsar before returning to Mumbai.

Northindia

Im currently writitng from Jaipur, Rajasthan. We are on the 4th or 5th day (lost track of time the moment we sat in the train from Mumbai) and have already seen enough stuff to make a billion blogposts! We started out in Udaipur, moved on to Jaipur and further on to Jaisalmer and the next day right back to Jaipur. The Culture is so dominant (in a good way) and its very obvious how proud of their background that these marwadi people are. The monument are Amazibng, and Yesterday we slept in tents in the middle of the desert after riding by camel out to the beautiful sand dunes, unluckily it started pouring down (In the desert!?!) and we were all drenched and smelled like wet camel by the time we returned ... Thats all for now. I'll update again in a couple of days or whenever ill be able to get to a computer.

Maria