Delhi, Bikaner, Thar Desert, Jaisalmer

Days 28-35

I’ve swapped solo travel for the safety net of a fast paced GAdventures group trip around Rajasthan and I’m loving it! I’ve been lucky to get an awesome roommate and great group of people (mostly girls) who get on surprisingly well for strangers now together 24/7. It’s like being away with a huge group of mates! We are so busy that halfway through I’m only just finding time and wifi to write it all down…

In a short space of time we’ve become a collective needy child, incapable of making any decisions without whining at our long suffering tour guide, Manny McPhee. Nobody can pronounce his real name. ‘Manny, I need water!’, ‘Manny, I need the toilet!’, ‘Manny, wipe my bum!’ (OK the last one was made up by my roommate Gemma) 😂

On to the actual tour, we’ve covered a huge amount of distance in the last ten days and if we’re not on a bus or a train, we are kept busy with activities. There is no way I could have seen so much on my own – the 4.30am wakeup calls would not have happened! Starting in Delhi, we walked around the new Town and visited the Salaam Baalak Trust, a charity helping street kids (sadly there are a lot) as well as the beautiful Humayan Tomb (designed by the same person as the Taj Mahal) and the India Gate where we proved to be the main attraction for Indian visitors. ‘Selfie mam?’

We also visited a very welcoming Sikh temple where they feed 10,000 people a day (we got to sample the delicious dalh and roti, sitting cross legged on the floor) and a Muslim temple (where most of the group got conned into paying for a ‘camera pass’), both firsts for me.

I could not believe how cold it was – I’ve been wearing pretty much all of my clothes at once and still freezing. I’ve taken to getting in my sleeping bag on the train.

We jumped straight on to a night train west to the desert city of Bikaner, close to the Pakistan border, then straight onto camels for a trek into the Thar desert where we would camp overnight – ‘enjoy a blissful nights sleep under a blanket of stars’ read the itinary.

The reality was that we bumped for a couple of hours through shrub land covered in electrical cables before stopping in a campsite next to a huge house only a half hour drive from where we started. In hindsight I should have made my feelings on animal tourism clear and not participate.

No blissful nights sleep either as the group started to drop like flies with the dreaded Delhi belly, emerging from their tents in the morning like the walking dead. We’ve become very familiar with each others toilet habits – we’re all friends here!! The rest of us were on edge hoping we weren’t next 😬 Safe to say nobody bothered watching the sunrise!

Things picked up the next day those of us who hadn’t gone down with the plague visited the Rat Temple, home to thousands of lovely rats. It’s not the dark dungeon I had imagined – it’s a white temple with cute little rats (if you like rats like I do) running around, sniffing your bare toes and drinking milk from bowls. See video evidence below!

Unfortunately we didn’t see a white rat – legend has it that you ask a question about your life, and then you see one, it means go for it. If not, it’s not the right time.

The hotels in India are just amazing… The name of this tour is ‘Rajasthan on a Shoe String’ so we were expecting dirty hostels but in Bikaner we stayed in the Bhairon Villas owned by actual Indian Royalty – and the Prince was in residence.

And not only was he in residence but he was serving behind the bar and spinning the tunes. The bar is my fantasy room – all animal print, masks and antique swords from his collection. The Indian rum was amazing too.

Next day we got back on the train and followed the border south west to Jaisalmer, the ‘Golden City’. What a beautiful place! Dominated by the sandstone fort, it’s all narrow streets filled by shops, cows, dogs and honking mopeds. Our taxi driver played some banging Indian tunes including a version of Ed Sheeran which just works… see video on Facebook!!

I have so many photos of Jaisalmer and the fort that it’s impossible to choose, so here are a few…

We stopped at an authentic shop to learn about the traditional patchwork that Jaisalmer is famous for and somehow got into a buying frenzy – the man kept throwing more and more colourful garments in front of us and we all sat there drinking chai tea, mesmerised before getting our wallets out. I now have to post home a rug that I had no intention of buying 🤔

No rest for the wicked so we were off to the Blue City of Jodpur via a 6 hour surprisingly comfy bus ride….