Reporting form Kashmir

I landed in Srinagar and began, almost on cue, my search for the beauty forever shown in Indian cinema, or at least in the movies of yesteryears. The first thing that hits me instead is the strategically placed CRPF Jawans at prominent places. Wearing bulletproof jackets and helmets, they stand not-at-ease. The sight can immediately stir unease within you. It did within me. (no photo-clicks of the police allowed)

I looked harder for the scenic beauty, but it continued to evade me. I guess I was looking in the wrong… season?

The Chinar trees had dried up, after all, and the Himalayas looked murky due to the heavy fog hanging around them. In any case, at a time you can feel your innards freeze bit by painful bit, ‘doing the sights’ become secondary; what you crave instead is a warm abode with a warm cup of chai in your hands to help thaw your numb muscles.

So then the sun decided to come out, and the poor thing looked like it had given up without even trying- the air continued to freeze (okay, almost freeze) at 2 degrees Celsius.

“Sloth will take you nowhere”, I told myself. “Most likely it’ll freeze you exactly where you stand,” I added. I decided to board a tourist bus from the airport to the Tourist Reception Centre (TRC).

Notes

- There are hourly buses from the airport to the city. Fare- Rs 50.

- If you are staying near Dal Gate, Boulevard or Gagribal road, get down at TRC.

- Look around.

- Find rickshaws easily.

- Shell out Rs 30 to Rs 40 and get one of them take you to any of the abovementioned places.

- The same service is available also on the TRC-Airport route.

- Want to go to the airport? Leave 2 hours early. There are 5-6 security checks on the way.

Upon arrival at the TRC, Firdous, the houseboat owner, hijacks me and promises me a fine warm stay for Rs 400 a night. The offer included breakfast and dinner. Could I refuse an offer like that? I couldn’t.

Firdous and I, we rove on a shikara (boat, for those who never watched Kashmir ki Kali) to his houseboat (Veena Houseboats).

Dal-day

Dal-night

Notes

- Veena Houseboats has deluxe, semi-deluxe and basic houseboats.

- It charges you Rs 400 for basic, Rs 1200 for semi-deluxe and Rs 3000-5000 for deluxe.

- Houseboat stay includes breakfast and dinner.

“Not everything they show in the movies is true, sweetheart.”

The time I spent in the houseboat made me arrive at a rare understanding- Shammi Kapoor wasn’t a great dancer; he shook the way he did just to drive the chill away.

Surrounded by water, the houseboat was as cold as hell would be, when it would indeed freeze over. “And the night isn’t even here yet”, I told myself. It was that kind of immobilizing cold which made it impossible to move an inch- I was stuck within the houseboat, because I couldn’t even walk out if I wanted to warm myself. The electricity is downright dim and no electric heating equipment works.

this blasted thing produced more smoke than heat

I decided to sip some Old Monk in hot water (because I had to, you know. I would have frozen otherwise. Believe me! Oh whatever. )

Four thick blankets and all-possible warmers redeemed the cold night. God bless Hot-bags!

Day 2:

Morning did not bring relief. If anything, it was worse. I didn’t know how I could have dragged myself out of the bed; every inch of my body cursed me for choosing this season to come here. There was hot water on call, but where was the strength to go out and call? 

Rising temper at own foolishness should have raised temperatures, but it didn’t.

Gathering every bit of courage left in my body, I reached for the bottle of rum. It helped me out of the bed, yes, but it also meant it was going to be a tipsy morning.

Nehru park on Dal

toilet rolls anyone?

going to school
visiting friends

shops on call

Serene as it is, life on Dal Lake is fascinating; boats ferry kids to school, goods to markets and visitors to houseboats and Dal tourist tours.

Fascinated, I watched life float on the lake and hoped to permanently etch, like Wordsworth, each fleeting memory on my mental landscape. Of course, with my brand-new Sony HX100, the exercise must be easier for me than for the meandering Bard.

Dal Lake

Snap! snap! went the shutterbug.

Harisingh fort in sight

Dal market

Firdous arranged a Shikara for me and took me to shopping places where I could find the “best deals in the town.” Clearly, he was getting commission for each purchase I made, but I didn’t really mind that. He was a nice man. Plus, he had a big family to feed. I was staying cheap and he could do with the extras bucks.

Accompanied by Firdous, I started my Shikara ride at 11 in the morning. There are a lot of other tourists, mostly couples.

Notes

A Shikara ride

- Comes for Rs 300 an hour on a covered boat, but costs far less during off-season. Haggle.

- Open small boats are mainly for locals living on Dal. A ride on them comes for 100 bucks an hour.

- Shikara operators promise to show you different places on Dal such as the Golden Lake, Zameen ki Churi, Vegetable Garden, Nehru Park, floating market, etc. But all these places are just names given to same water bodies, all at the same place. So technically, it’s just one Dal lake.

- So basically, just take a single one-hour ride. If you are keener, do water track the whole day (Rs 1,500-2,000) and cover more ground for 6-8 hours. It lets you explore the quieter parts of the Lake, and you can appreciate the serene Dal’s famous sunset.

- There are hawkers everywhere on water. Avoid buying anything from them; they overprice everything.

- Your guide gets a 20 to 30 percent commission on everything you buy from the floating market.

If you didn’t know it already, Kashmiris, in general, are porcelain-skin, tall and light-eyed people. Wrapped in black overcoats, they can be seen walking in confident strides, and even the oldest among them appear strong and ready to take on the challenges of a tough terrain and climate. It is often difficult to decide what to stare at and admire- the scenery or the people.

Garden

Whenever on land, I walked without stopping, because it kept me warm and mostly because, well, I missed being able to do that on my houseboat.

On one of my aimless strolls, I discovered a centrally heated (!) Café Coffee Day at the Boulevard. It became my regular evening coffee place.

Day 3:

As the days rolled by, I started missing something I never imagined I could miss- living on good old land. And my cheap-basic-budget houseboat had got painfully cold anyway. For Rs 600 a night, I decided to move to Hotel Swiss. Warm and snug as my new temporary address was, it still took me half a bottle to gather the courage to shower!

On terra firma after two whole days on the water, I decided to exercise my limbs as much as I could. Measure the whole town on foot, people. It’s the best way to keep you warm.

Kashmir Government Arts Emporium

I visited the government art emporium. Located inside a beautiful building, it is a place which you must see, if not necessarily shop at. It closed at around 4pm when I was there, but it remains open for longer during summers.

Shopping in Srinagar:

Pashmina: Thumb rule for Pashmina shopping? Do not buy 99% of what is being sold. It is all fake. You cannot trust the shopkeepers, houseboat owners or guides. Pure Pashmina minus embroidery starts at Rs 11,000 a shawl. Anything below that means you might return home with nothing but an overpriced piece of cleverly done fake.

There are cheaper and smarter options to Pashmina like count and pure wool. Good embroidery pure wool shawl can be bought for anything from Rs 800 to Rs 5000.

Saffron: Good quality pure Kashmiri saffron starts from Rs 300 per gram. Again, there are high chances of bogus saffron; fake color or aroma can easily be added to misguide buyers. The most expensive spice in the world, pure saffron is hard to get.

Aari/ hand embroidery work on suits, saris and shawls: While it is difficult to tell machine embroidery apart from that done by hand, the latter looks prettier and is far more expensive. Real handmade embroidery requires patience, hard work and lots of time to be made. So when you buy handwork, make sure it is exactly that.

Leather: The leather available in this part of the country is mostly Goat leather. It makes pretty, sturdy purses and jackets. While purses can be yours for anything between Rs 250 and Rs 1000, be ready to shell out Rs 1,500-Rs 5000 for jackets with embroidery.

Dry fruits: Unless you wind up with a walnuts compared to Delhi Difference of 100 to 250Rs in.

Best Buy: For Ferrans, the traditional Kashmiri gown-like winter wear, you can buy good quality woolen material for Rs 200 to Rs 280 a meter, and then get it stitched for Rs 250 in Srinagar. Acquiring these makes sense as they help protect you from the biting cold while you travel across Kashmir in winters.

Government Art Emporium: Get nice, cheap souvenirs from here. For shawls and other fabric, the place is a little overpriced, but you can definitely trust the place for quality. Plus, the stuff available here is definitely handwork.

cont...

A day in Bundi

Bundi 3-4 March 2011

I arrive late without any booking and knock at random guest houses recommended by LP….only to hear, “not available”. I don’t like the way they say it, from behind the doors without asking me to sit down or offer water. It’s kind of a culture shock for me. I thought we are “the” hosts.

I am hauling a huge back-pack am hungry and tired. I check out a few more hostels around and they show me most horrible of rooms L. As I walk in the streets populated by hundreds of monkeys, people ogle as if I am a new species and make weird sounds. I hate the city.

If I don’t eat anything am going to collapse, I need to put my bag down and breathe. I enter a haveli guest house and ask if I can have lunch there and if there is any room available. They show me the room first, a characterless dark ground floor room for Rs250. “Nahi chahiye”, “ khana milega or ek chai please”, I said.

The owner of the hotel sits with me to talk. Oh no! And he bitches about every hotel I call to book. I hate the city even more.

Finally I call R.N. Haveli highly recommended for solo female travelers as its run by all women. As I walk down to the haveli I see an old rambling house in the middle of others equally rambling houses. I almost scream….NO!! Bundi was one place I had imagined to be the best, where I could simple lay back and write in the beauty of the lake and fort. Not in my dreams I had imagined a densely populated, manner less city. Foreigners like it a lot as they think they get to see “real” India here. I don’t understand the term “real India”. It is such a big and diverse country, people have different lifestyles in different states, different languages, different occupation, different geography, you can’t just tag one place as real India.

A room on the ground floor (Rs200 p/n) is given to me and auntiji is super-fast in getting friendly with me and telling all about herself, her family, her neighbors and their lifetime woes. That is it! I decide to skip the fort and take a direct train to Udaipur the next day.

Early morning takes me towards the fort and the city actually looks pretty minus people. It’s surrounded by green hills and fort view from any elevated space is to die for. I have a little talk with myself and we agree to not run-away but face the city together.

Bundi morning

My hostel has a homelike feel, the meals are cooked by the owner itself (Mama) and she has magic in her hands! Her daughter is visiting her with her daughter and there are all day long conversations over tea with dropping-in neighbors. There is a beautiful garden in the backyard, a big neem tree and a swing. It is a great place for home sick people.

Bundi Palace

Entry 25, Camera 50

Fort view from the street

The Fort

Door

Love Doves

Beauty

Gate1

Gate2

Interior

A beautiful palace decorated with paintings in Indian traditional colors. The palace is perched on a hill overlooking the city and has a very picturesque view. But it’s upsetting to see such beautiful paintings scarred by the locals. The guard tells me they no more open the painting room for Indians as they destroy the paintings. Appalling!

Taragarh Fort

Entry 25, Camera 50

Taragarh Fort Climb

Bundi City

On the top

wilderness

calm

bandar

Taragarh fort is a rambling mammoth. It is the most wild, mystic and un-restored of forts I have seen. It is 2km steep hiking with hundreds of monkeys, so keep your glucose water and a stick handy. It is sad to see plastic littered around and monkey and goat shit all over. I so hope they restore it in a better manner.

Am happy that I stayed but I can’t stay for longer. I catch a train to Udaipur the next morning.

A week in Pushkar

26Feb-3Mar 2011

I board a govt. bus from Jodhpur to Ajmer at 10 in the morning. There is ample state transportation in Rajasthan so there is no need to book through travel agencies. One can get a ticket even after boarding the bus.

Avoid travel agents for booking bus tickets and paying unnecessary commission.

As the bus wheels towards Ajmer, there is total change in scenery. There are beautiful lakes surrounded by small hills and green farmlands. I wonder if it’s the same state, which has the Great Thar desert. Diversity in India never fails to astonish me. With every state there is a change in geography, culture, language and traditions. There has to be something greater at work to keep all this together!

I reach Ajmer at 3pm and take a bus to Pushkar (buses b/w Ajmer and Pushkar are every 15 minutes; ticket Rs 7 to 10). Ajmer and Pushkar are divided by Naag (snake) mountain.

There are no autos in Pushkar only man pulled rikshaws. But I prefer to walk in this tiny town with interesting stalls on the streets bursting with color and life. As I ask for directions for Lake View (Lonely Planet) I feel welcomed in the city. With directions everybody tells me, “Welcome to Pushkar.”

The Post card women

In India people have this amazing ability of talking to strangers, in a minute’s conversation you can everything about a person. The number of children, school they go to, tensions in the family, financial problems and how much spirituality they have attained so far. And they would want to know the same from you. To avoid answering unwanted questions I avoid even polite namastes.

World-famous Poha stall

Lake View is perched on the holy lake and has no room available in my budget. When I started my back-pack I was under impression that 800 to 1500 is a good budget for a single traveler. But as I met more travelers in my journey I learnt…

1. As there is no concept of traveling alone in India or back-pack for months at stretch. We take leisure holidays with family or friends. We always have big budgets, at least bigger than the back packers.

2. You can get a decent room for 100 to 500 almost anywhere in India. For bigger cities you can couch-surf. Websites to refer for cheap accommodations-

- www.hostelworld.com

- www.tripadvisor.com

- www.couchsurfing.com

3. If traveling alone, try not to get unnecessarily friendly with anybody (esp. Indians). Solo Indian female traveler is always suspected!! They identify foreigners’ back-packers, they identify Indian families or couples but they don’t identify solo Indian female traveler.

4. I was asked by almost everybody, whether I don’t have family or friends or I am a loony. Some of them were genuinely concerned!

5. Talk to fellow travelers and give-take recommendations for hotels, food etc. They are always best trusted more than any website or a book.

6. The complexity here is, you got to find a perfect balance of skepticism and friendliness. Be careful but not scared. Drop your skepticism and don’t be scared of warm smiles….open yourself. Goodness around will surprise you!

The Holy Lake

Lake View manager offers me to show their other guest house 5 minutes walk from the main bazaar, Raghav Resort. The room is spacious but without much character, I take it anyways for 300 per night.

There is still time for sunset so I head towards the Sunset café and order myself a big dinner and chai of course. I am here to see the much talked about sunset celebration of Pushkar. Sunset café is located on the west of Pushkar Lake and offers a spectacular sunset view. Lots of people gather to celebrate the sunset here with drums and other local instruments. The ambiance is overwhelming. Sunset café becomes my every-evening hang.

Celebrating Sun-Set

The Holy Lake

Sun-Set Cafe

Next morning I meet 2 cool Croatian guys in my guest house and I tag along with them to Original Sai Baba for breakfast. There I bump into my friend Amitai from Israel (we were in the same hostel in Jaisalmer), he has this perfect knack of getting the cheapest rooms. While he is talking to the OSB’s manager, he is offered a room for Rs100 with an attached toilet. I almost scream with surprise, “I want to see that too!” I was shown a room for Rs150 a day with a store room and a common kitchen! I instantly go back to check out from Raghav and move in OSB. (During Pushak festival season the same room will cost ten times more!)

My room at OSB

Pushakr is a touristy town but there is some magic in the city I can’t put my finger on. The streets are cheerful and peppy. There are people sitting in groups playing chess, eating flafel, having chai. Accommodation is cheap, you can buy fresh veggies from the market and cook, you can learn various arts like, dance, music, singing, jewelry making, painting etc. I extend my 2 days stay to 6 days. And I decide to come here again to stay for 2-3 months :)

I miss the friends I made in Jaisalmer. But back-pack is all about discovering happiness with your own self and I am delighted at the idea of being able to stay happy without the “other”. This realization is one of the best things that happened to me in my trip alone.

Pushkar has many good places to go trekking and hiking. There are many temples balanced on small hills that can be trekked in 45mins to 1 hour. At the Sunset café I meet 2 Austrian girls and we plan a trek to Savitri temple the next morning. Another group from Austria tags along.

Trek to Savitri temple

The best time to be in Savitri temple is before sun-rise. You can witness the most spectacular view of rising sun from beyond the mountain ranges in the distance. But if you are not one of the painstaking, early morning risers, anytime in the day offers you a beautiful view of the small white town, surrounding the holy lake, flanked by green hills.

On the top

On the hill-top there is beautiful fusion music played and you can sip a large cup of tea on the most comfortable Indian chairs (mudhas).

I walk, trek, workout, cook, play chess on the street, make friends, eat awesome falafels… It’s the kind of life I always wanted. I would never want to leave….

I beat them all!

Falafel shop

Nandu

At the sunset café I meet Nandu, a Brazilian hippie with the most amazing dreadlocks ever!! No prizes for guessing I get 2 dreadlocks on me. I am a stamped vagabond now!

We eat great buffet at Shiva café (near Sun Set). 60 bucks for a meal of life time with exhaustive menu! Highly recommended!!

Shiva Buffet

I love Pushkar and am already planning my coming back….

Spellbinding Jaisalmer

Day 2

I am again tiring myself, getting into a schedule and fixing deadlines... Bad-office habits die hard I guess. I have to force myself, even to unwind! 'Take-it-easy' doesn’t come so easy to me.

Today is the grand finale of the Jaisalmer Desert Festival and my hotel has organized a jeep to take our hostel group to Sam sand dunes, where it is to be held. Sam is 45km from Jaisalmer and there is only one single lane road to reach there. But in spite of the festival there is not much traffic on the road.

When we reach Sam the scene here is out-worldly! I am reminded of ‘Road Movie’ starring Abhay Deol, where in the middle of the endless, dry desert suddenly there is a carnival. In the movie I thought it was Deol’s fantasy or dream, but no! I see it for real today. He wasn’t dreaming, it happens for real!

The place is heaving with people decked in bright colors standing out vividly in the barren desert of Thar. Elaborately adorned camels at your service ready to gallop with you for the sun set view. Heartrending music and breath-taking dance performances. Kill Me Now!

At Sam I make friends with Joe Parker a kind-hearted primary teacher from New York who has come with our group. And he invites me to join him and his friends for a 2 half-days and 1 night camel safari. It’s nice to know people you’re going camel safari with and I gladly accept his invitation.

Day 3

Desert Safari

The safari is organized by Adventure Travels, highly recommended by many travel magazines, and they blatantly cash their popularity. I recommend that travelers to do some research of their own and get the best deal. It’s better to give baksheesh to the camel-men than to pay extra to the travel agencies. But in any case no camel safari is bad-camel-safari…. It could be some hundreds here or there but if you like quiet or you have a group of friends you cannot not enjoy it. It will be stupid to go to Jaisalmer and not do a camel safari!

We started around 2 in the afternoon by jeep, which dropped us 40km away from the city. There we find our camels and camel-men waiting for us there with welcoming grins. The jeep driver warns them against using any foul words for the tourists as I am an Indian who understands Marwari (their dialect) well. I feel powerful and in control. J

We are given one camel each and riding instructions.

- Tich tich tich tich to start.

- Je je je je to stop.

- Kick on the stomach to make it run.

Mine abruptly stood up without my tich tich tich scaring the hell out of me. Mental beast. Finally I understood it’s not the language or words they understand but the sound, the accent of camel men!! Although I was the rider, it was still manipulated by its original masters. Huh!

My female friends do not ignore LP's recommendation to wear a sports bra for it's one hell of a bumpy ride.

We ride in the quiet of the majestic Thar, cross a village, a lake and a small dune. Our camels are moving at different paces and mine is the slowest. No tich-tich works and I am too kind to kick it in the stomach. I am left far behind to converse with the other riders, once in a while I hear from the camel man (Subhan Khan), “All ok everybody?!” And we ride again quietly admiring the beautiful golden landscapes… Don’t expect vast, treeless undulating expanse of sand in Thar. The desert is not an endless stretch of sand dunes, bereft of life or vegetation. Thar Desert is highly ‘generic’ for it becomes lush green with slightest precipitation.

We have been riding 2-3 hours and my back is threatening some serious pain. All I want is to get down and sit and stretch on the soft unmoving desert. Every time there is a slant and the camel jerks going down, I screech like a little girl. I will be grateful to walk on my two feet now, I beg Shubhan to let me down! Finally we halt on a small dune and join our friends already camping and gathering fuel for dinner.

It is such a relief to step back on the ground from a 10 feet tall galloping giant! As we stretch there is hot chai freshly brewed for us…such luxury in the desert. All my firnagi friends are addicted to chai by now. Join the club!

I talk to the camel-men in broken Marwari and they are cheerful around me. I help them cut vegetables and understand my firangi friend’s queries about their lives and rural India.

We assemble around our mini-bonfire for dinner and a story-telling session. Subhan and his men tell puzzles and some really juvenile ghost stories, mostly funny. Here is one puzzle for you… A camel is carried in a boat to someplace, and the boat is so small that any extra ounce will sink it. If the camel has to crap, how will the camel-man manage? The boat is closed and no, he can’t throw the shit out!

Sleeping time. We had to sleep in the open there were no tents. We spread ourselves in different directions under the open sky and curl-up in our beds. I was dreading the cold in the desert but thankfully the bedding provided by the travel agency is adequate for February’s mild cold. It is a full moon night with clear sky and all visible constellations. It’s more romantic than adventurous!

I set my phone alarm for 6.30, so that I don’t miss the sunrise. When my alarm rings in the morning, nobody is awake and there is no sun in sight, I keep snoozing it and peeping out of my blanket every ten minutes hoping to see sunlight. It is 8 and there is no sun still.

It’s freezing out here and to make it worse it’s cloudy. I pray my Gods to give me courage to face the cold, windy morning. Suddenly there is light in the sky. Sun? No it is lightening & thunder. No prizes for guessing. It starts raining!

We run to cover our bags, cameras and ourselves but to no use. While we are busy saving ourselves from the rain, hiding unsuccessfully under a big tripal Subhan and his men cook breakfast for us. Don’t forget to tip them generously!

After 15 minutes of the rain drama the sun shines through. No sun-rise for us no pictures for you. L The camel-men perform magic out of bare minimum utensils and basic ingredients. We are served breakfast of porridge, fried-eggs, toast, jam, fruits and tea. The desert is full of surprises! And you are right. I don’t lose any weight in Jaisalmer!

After breakfast it’s time to head back… I am much more comfortable on my camel now and can race it on my command. Now when I have almost tamed it, it’s time to say good bye.

Day 5

I decide to do nothing but sleep, eat and sleep some more.

Day 6

Kuldhara

Now I have 2 girl-friends from the camel-safari and we mostly hang-out and make plans together. They are very happy to have me for I order good Indian food, answer their curious minds about Indian culture, translate them to the shopkeepers and shoo away chichhoras on road. And I am happy to have them coz I want them to have a good time in my country. I enjoy their company and learn the nuances of travelling.

Flavia is a dentist in Brazil (Sao Paulo) and she is on a world tour. She saved money to buy a house and chose to travel the whole world with it than getting stuck with a house and all that which comes with it. Truly inspiring! Mar Lous is a strong German girl. She is always so confident coz she is taller than most Indian guys! She is on a world tour too and loves to do everything alone.

We plan a trip to Kuldhara, a deserted village (read legend) 20km from Jaisalmer on bicycles. We rent 3 bicycles from Naryan Cycles (Gandhi Chowk) and start our crazy-adventure around 12 O’clock. Paddling and singing “Main herz tantz” we ride… I have never felt so light and happy. Such rapture! My heart is actually dancing. This is it! I know am born to travel J

It’s a lonely road with a couple of houses sited at far distances; we hear hisses of desert-snakes and ‘sheela-ki-jawani’ playing loud on passing tractors once in a while. But mostly it’s quiet.

Phisssssssssssssssssssssss………………….. Naah...Not a snake! Marlous’s cycle has a puncture! We are not prepared for this.

We walk for a km and find a cycle shop. But her bicycle is broken beyond repair, the tube is busted. L Flavia and Marlous decide to hitch-hike back while I continue alone…

The road to Kuldhara is made on the dunes so it’s up-down-hill. I am full of energy and excitement… singing and riding I am having a gala time. But the real deal is yet to come and that is coming-back!

Deserted village of Kuldhara

Coming-back...

Backbreaking! Am glad the girls have gone back and escaped this torture. I eat 5 oranges, 1 kit-kat, chana and drink 3 bottles of water and I am still hungry and thirsty. I have no energy left to ride uphill; I get down and push myself and the bike every time there is an ascending ride. Still I refuse autos and tractors offering to give me and my bike ride home. For I had to do it by myself!

My legs are shaking and my mouth is dry…. Panting, trembling I keep riding, thinking about how am going to brag it to my friends! That’s my only motivation.

I reach the bicycle shop with my head high in pride and legs shuddering in pain. I can hardly walk. Dragging myself to the hotel, I knock at Flavia’s room, “I did it” I announce!! “And I am hungry.”

I polish off 1 plate palak paneer, 2 rotis, 1 chai, I packet of glucose cookies all at once and my stomach still feels empty!

The eventful day is not over yet. When I reach my hotel there is a Sufi Dervesh singing on the rooftop. Is there anything else you can ask for in life?!!

Listening to him play Algojaa, I feel God with me. Simply divine! My body and soul both are overwhelmed with satisfaction today. Mind? I left it home.

Day 7

Last day in Jaisalmer. I devote it to my friends and shopping.

Jaisalmer has amazing leather bags and mirrored bed-covers. Though I have no budget to shop, I still buy a pretty hand-bag for my lovely sister. J

Pushkar next.