Choo Choo!
We needed to get from Jaipiur to Jaisalmier, which is a small town on the edge of the dessert from where we intended to go camel trekking. Our ever-useful Lonely Planet told us that there was a train, #4059 that went from Jaipur to Jaisalmer daily at 11:45pm and took 13 hours. Easy we thought and went down to the train booking office in the morning. We filled out the form correctly and pushed our way into the queue (at the stations here the rule is "Push in or get pushed out"). We were issued tickets, yet they did not say what our seat or carriage number was, only that they were "reserved". The nice man at the counter told us to go across to the station and confirm our tickets with the station master within half an hour. So we went across to the Station Master who told us, no you have to confirm your seats half an our before the train leaves..!
We assumed that all was cool, so did our day in Jaipuir then went to the train station around 11pm, here is how the rest of the night unfolded:
11:00pm - We went to the Tourist Help Office to make sure we were doing the right thing, they said to report to the Station Master in Office 16.
11:02pm - Went to the Station Master, he spoke little English, looked at our ticket, picked up his phone pressed some buttons, put it back down, smiled at us and said "OK".
11:10pm - No luck communicating with the Station Master so we went back to the Tourist Office. "Oh, you need to go to Office 13" (same guy).
11:15pm - Office 13. Closed
11:20 - We went to the platform where the train was boarding hoping our names and mysterious seat numbers were on the board. They were'nt so we decided to just wait for the train. After a while we caught sight of an electronic info board that said the 4059 at 11:15pm was now due at 1:15am!
12:30am - After sitting in a waiting room for what seemed like for ever we went back down to the Station Master's Office, there was a new guy there who told us that we should have gone and picked up our tickets at another station 5km down the road! But dont worry, just get on the train and ask an officer.
1:00am - We went back to the platform, the board now informed us that the train was due at 1:30am.
1:25am - Train is now due at 1:45am
2:05am - Train Arrives. We were in a sleeper car, although we had no idea which one and they were spread all across the train. Ran through them all and couldnt see a spare bed. The train started moving, at least we were on it. We got to the end of the last sleeper car and found an officer. We werent on his list, he said we must be in the other sleeper cars at the other end of the train, we would need to change at the next stop. We sat crunched around our gear next to the toilets.
3:15am -The train stopped in the middle of no where. The guard told us we could get out and change cars. The platform was dark, and hardly anyone was getting off the train, most cars doors were locked. We ran down the platform, it was too dark to read the signs on the cars. We found one where we could see beds and jumped on just before the train took off again. We walked through 4 cars, finally found an officer who (thank god) had our names on his list. We had beds right next to where we had jumped on! Walked back through the 4 cars and there were people in our beds. After some argument between them, the officer and Marcus (I was too tired and had been accosted by some guy who kept telling me he worked in a bank!). The people in our beds had swapped so they could be close to friends. It was unclear where the beds they had left were. We said we were happy to take them, just *^&%& tell us so we can lie down and go to sleep!
3:30am - The officer finally found our beds and we got to sleep.
That was most of the drama. Other highlights included the family of 6 that moved onto the bed opposite mine the next day who had some fairly "lively" kids. The multiple beggars that wake you up to ask for money. My favourite was when we hit the dessert. There are no windows, only bars, and sand and dust went through the whole train. It was everywhere, in our ears, in our bags even in the ceiling fans!
At the time it wasnt much fun, but pretty funny to look back on! However Karma pulled through for us because Jaisalmer was a great place, the best yet. It is only a small town of 60,000 people but there was no rubbish, it didnt smell and we got a sweet hook-up with a guest house that was mega cheap and sorted us out with everything we needed. Jaisalmer is very pretty, all the buildings are made of sand stone so it has a golden look to it. It has the mandatory "fort on a hill" that all Rajastan cities seem to have which looks really nice lit up at night.
Into The Desert
We headed off from Jaisalmer about 8am in the back of a standard issue Jeep, complete with broken exhaust and a roof designed to house midgets (great for the bumpy roads we were about to encounter). After about 30 or 40 kms we met up with our rides for the next couple of days, Charlie and Ramajan, two large and personable camels. Mine spent most of the time eating and trying to run faster than the others. A bit like me I guess. Kev's was the funny guy who kept pulling random stunts unexpectedly. A bit like him too.
After saddling up, our guides, Ramdan and Ali, led us off into the desolate expanse that is the Thar Desert. The landscape here was not completely devoid of life, as some of the African deserts are. Along the way there is a fair bit of plant life and animal life (including camels, lizards and big beetles). It is, however, desolate enough that I'm not entirely sure how our guides managed to navigate between the occasional marker and obvious trails. While we were slightly surprised to see that they had cell phone reception in the desert, I'm pretty sure they weren't using GPS.
The first stop we made was for lunch and we were only just able to climb off the saddle, with our legs still locked in position, unwilling to straighten. Needless to say our sore arses were thankful for the rest. Ramdan cooked us up a tasty feed of vegetarian curry and chapatis (unleavened round breads).
After lunch and a long siesta, we set off for our night stop, which was an immense set of sand dunes in the middle of the desert. The camels promptly did what all males do after a long day, they lay down in the sand, scratched their balls with their tails and farted loudly. The dunes were quite an amazing site, with sand as far as the eye could see. A perfect spot to kill a chicken for dinner perhaps. So that's what Ramdan did for us. Ali ended up having to travel for 3 hours non-stop (while we were having lunch) to find a village that had chickens but he found one. And it was delicious. This was actually only the second time we'd eaten meat since being in India. The most surprising part is that not only are we not fading away and nearing death (as I was certain must happen), we actually haven't missed it that much since the vegetarian food here is so good. There are lots of tasty lentils and legumes packed with protein to keep us healthy too.
So after a tasty cup of chai, a nice sunset and a huge meal we fell asleep underneath a starry sky in the middle of the sand dunes. I could certainly think of worse things to be doing. It was a very relaxing experience, as it was unbelievably quiet out there. Way off in the distance we could hear some beating drums as a small village celebrated something into the night and there were a few animals around but that was about it really. Except for Kev's camel, which kept farting all through the night.
The following day was similar, except there were brief bouts of agony and a swim in a small lake in the middle of the desert. The agony was due to our sore arses bouncing around whenever they made the camels pick up the pace and jog for a bit! Luckily, it was never for too long and only in the morning, before it got too hot for the camels to be running. We ended up back at the hotel at about 5pm and, despite having a very enjoyable time in the desert with our cool camels, we were glad that we had taken the two-day option and not the three... or four.
More Trains!
We got a bus from Jaisalmer to Jodphur. We had found a train on the Internet that went from Jodphur to Pune, our next destination. Unfortunately upon turning up we found out this train only went on Tuesdays. It was Thursday. So we found a train that went to Mumbai, where Pune was only a 4 hour bus ride so we tried to book that. The lady told me that the train was full and we had to go on the waiting list, numbers 13 and 14 in the queue. We were a bit worried as the train left in 3 hours but we took. We promptly went to the station to check where you confirmed your ticket (we didnt want any more hassels as this was a 20 hour train), and the guy at the office told us our tickets were confirmed and gave us our seat numbers! I dont know how we jumped 14 places on waiting list and got seats on a full train in the space of 5 minutes but we werent going to argue! Fortunately this train ride went without a hitch, got to Mumbai then found a bus to Pune. Great Success!
The Dirty Mo's
Here's the latest incarnation of our stupendous 'staches. These photos were actually taken a couple of days ago, so there's plenty more to come before the final installment. This time we've gone for the sifty, seedy look, which we think complements our wispy growth well. We've also got a little surprise in store for the final photos. Don't forget to tune in next time...
1 comment:
Love the Mo's you both
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