Jaisalmer

 

    Wednesday morning, I had breakfast at the hotel in Jaisalmer--a waffle with honey (the only syrup I could see), two slices of toast and two hard boiled eggs. I went down to the front desk at 8 and Mr. Bhojraj Singh, bowing and deferential and solicitous, said that my guide, Kamal, was waiting outside. He took me on a four hour tour of the fort and the town, and Mr. Singh said that his price was 600 rupees, or about $7  (I paid him much more). 

    Here's a photo of Kamal I took later in the morning, on top of the fort wall:

    Kamal grew up in Jaisalmer, went to the local schools and then off to university, but I don't know where. He was great as a guide, patient and knowledgeable, and his English was very good. He talked a lot about the Hindu and Jain faiths; he himself was one of the two, I think Jain. Jainism is similar to and related to Hinduism, but only about 4% of Indians belong to it, and the Jaisalmer region is an area with one of the biggest concentrations of Jains.

    I saw a few cows on in Delhi, but in Jaisalmer I'd say that the number of legs belonging to cows and dogs exceeded those of humans. They were everywhere. Kamal said that people (by that he meant Hindus and Jains) fed the cows and the pigeons (who were also legion) because it gave them good luck.

    As I mentioned, the fort was built in the 12th century. It has only one entrance, a narrow and steep road that passed through four gates in succession (I think this was a very cautious and maybe paranoid king). Inside the fort, there are only very narrow lanes between the temples, houses, and other structures. About a quarter of the population in the town still lives within the fort (okay, that's what Wikipedia told me, and that seems way to high a number; I'd say 10% max).

    

These eight hundred year old doors are absolutely massive constructions of wood and iron. Every other bit of wood that Kamal pointed out was teak, from southern India; I don't know if that is what these are made of.

    These were the royal residences; the king's to the left, and the queen's to the right. Everything is made of a yellow sandstone quarried nearby.

And inside the fort, there was a small courtyard that the king's residence faced, that I'll let Kamal talk about:

    At the end of the video he is talking about the orange handprints representing all of the sati women, or widows who killed themselves after their husbands died, presumably in battle, I don't know.

    Here you can see some of the narrow streets inside the fort (with Kamal always showing the way), and the houses that are occupied by families. There are also now some hotels, or guest houses inside the fort, but my guidebook (Lonely Planet) advised against staying inside, as it is adding adding pressure and wear on the fort.

    Next, we went to a Jain temple inside the fort. Kamal had an awful lot to say about the figures in carved in the stone and their religious significance, but (not having Adam along to absorb it) I didn't retain much (and a great video I have of Kamal's explanations weirdly has damaged audio). Here's the outside of the temple. There's a somewhat offensive sign off to the right, but I'll leave that aside. We took our shoes off and went in:

    Looking up at the dome inside:

    I believe this is a figure of Mahavira, one of the central Jani, or spiritual leaders in the central or focal crypt in the temple. One of the Jain monks is standing next to it. He's wearing the mask not for Covid, but because many of the monks, in their desire to harm no life, use them to prevent even the smallest flies or germs from being inhaled/ingested:

We went to a second temple with another monk. I didn't like filming him, but Kamal encouraged it. It felt to me like it was a show for eliciting donations, but whatever. I didn't get an explanation for his chanting otherwise:

    After some other wandering around the fort, we climbed up to the top of the wall, where a cannon had been placed in a much later epoch:

    Then we made our way down and out of the fort, and back in to the surrounding town...

    Next, we went to a series of haveli--the showy houses of the wealthy merchants. I think these are pretty late, like 18th century. They seemed pretty barren to me, with the carpets and wall hangings they originally had, I think they would have looked spectacular.

    I believe this was a room for the lady of the house:

    And looking out at the fort:

    And here is from the roof of the haveli we went into:

    There is too much more to throw in here--as Kamal kept saying, the town is "mind-blowing."

I had lunch at a rooftop restaurant while Kamal went off to do something.

    ...and then he took me to some shops, which I'm sure he was getting a commission to do. Here is one of them, an antique shop, that had two floors and many more rooms than this:

    Finally, Kamal invited me to hop on the back of his motorcycle for a ride back to the Mandir Palace:

    I said me goodbyes to the Mandir Palace and the inestimable Mr. Bhojraj Singh, and got a taxi back to the airport. And one more time playing chicken on the one-lane road:

    The flight ended up being delayed by about 4 hours, so I had a lot of time to spend in that cold, dreary airport. Then finally out on the pavement and up the stairs to the plane...

    Even though I had texted my hotel in Delhi three times, giving them updates on my late arrival, by the time I got there at 1 am: no room at the hotel. It looked like a pretty shabby place anyway. So they packed me into someone's car and took me down the street to another hotel, "same owner! same owner!", which was no better. And thus ended my long day in Jaisalmer and back in Delhi...