Jaisalmer: part 1

We arrived from Jodhpur at 6am and with limited options at that time in the morning, headed for our hotel, Helsinki House. The doors were locked, and a little worried we sat down on the wall outside to wait and see if we could get in! If not we faced a half day walk around a town in the desert with two bags each. Not fun. However we suddenly realised where we were...sitting on a wall, looking out over the desert as the sun was rising and decided to chill out and enjoy it!

Five minutes later the front door opened and we were allowed into the hotel. Not only that but Ali, the owner of the hotel greeted us, upgraded us, allowed us to have our room more than half a day early and invited us to join him for Indian chai on the roof for the rest of sunrise.

After being sold to, constantly asked for money and scammed by those we had met in the tourism industry in India up until now, Ali was a bit of a shock for me. He was born in Jaisalmer, didn't go to school and aged nine got his first job in the tourist industry as a dish washer for a hotel. At that time he earnt 150 rupees a month (£1.50). After many years of working in this industry he got the opportunity to go to Finland to work (hence the name of the hotel), and made his living working for a company over there who install central heating units. Apparently he had always dreamed of owning a hotel in Jaisalmer and so he set out to do so. Working two jobs, 18 hour days and sending money home, he determinally went about achieving his goal and now in his early 30's he owns a gorgeous eleven roomed hotel. Pretty impressive.

We were pretty taken back by the hotel too. All rooms are huge and made out of sandstone blocks, with lovely en-suite bathrooms (walk in showers with no shower screens and massive square sinks) king-sized beds with frames hand carved by the local carpenter and super comfy mattresses. The curtains and window seats are made of gorgeous sari material. We had landed on our feet!

After a four hour nap we got up and headed to Jaisalmer fort, a huge fort standing on top of the hill. Chris may have a little more to say about the fort but for me the highlights were the thousands of bats that camp out under one of the old entrance archways and the great views of the city.

In Eastern Europe there were a lot of churches, in India there are A LOT of forts and Chris' attention span for forts is normally double mine.  Common features:

-Cannons

-fortification walls

-more cannons

-artillary museums with all the swords and armour that was commonplace to the region

-An audio guide informing you of the Maharaja's life and various different hunting excursions where he killed tigers and/or boar

-Maharaja's quarters 

I really like the parts of the tours that talk about the clothes that all the original inhabitants used to wear, the significance of the turbans and the pride associated with different colours and styles of wearing them. All women lived under a strict veil of 'Purdah', that is they constantly had to cover up to protect them from the gaze of men not in their close family. This sometimes results in entire quarters of the palace being dedicated for all women and all the elephant carriers for women are completely covered.

Anyway I digress...in this fort we added an additional 'press-up challenge' for my entertainment...

Chris did his whilst listening to more information on the armoury, I skipped it :)

Below is a picture of Chris loving this fort...

Anyway fort now toured we headed for a local rooftop to chill out. Between 11-4 this is the hottest place we have been. It sometimes feels like the sun is scorching your skin and I was struggling.

That night we had dinner on the rooftop of the hotel. Just as we got up to the roof Xyote, Ali's girlfriend joined us. Xochi is from Brisbane in Australia but explained she has been over here for the last 7 months helping out with the hotel. It turns out she was responsible for the Sari curtains and a lot of the interior design for the hotel. Both Ali and Xochi joined us for dinner which was lovely.

We had planned to spend 3 days in Jaisalmer so we decided the next day we would cheat a bit, head to a nearby hotel with a pool and chill. I had a massage and we both swam and sunbathed, it was great.

Jaisalmer has an army airbase and it's the closest to the Pakistani border, so from our sun loungers we watched fighter jets take off and fly over head..

Our first two days in Jaisalmer had been awesome and the next day we were headed for the desert to ride camels and sleep under the stars.

I couldn't wait.

Jane