Valentines under the stars

What an amazing weekend I had last weekend. We took an extra 2 days off school to head out to the west of India into the Thar desert in Jaisalmer. However, our first stop was the 18 hour sleeper train on Thursday night to get there. We met a very nice young woman whilst we were waiting on the platform who advised us just to get on the train at whatever coach was in front of us when it arrived, as it would only be at the station for a couple of minutes, and then walk through the train. So we did. However, after squeezing through some of the smallest gaps I have ever managed to fit my body through we got to the other end of the carriage to find you couldn't walk through. We waited at the end of the carriage by the door until the next station where we jumped off and sprinted down the platform to the coach which we thought was ours. It wasnt. So we then did a lot more pushing, squishing and squeezing through the thin aisle along the carriage - which resulted in a lot of bum grabbing and pinching on behalf of the local men - until we managed to find our seats.
When we did eventually find them, our 4 seats were filled with 10 men some of whom thankfully stood up to let us sit down, seeing as they were our seats. The sleeper train beds are layed out with 3 bunks on top of each other and 3 opposite, and then 2 bunks across the aisle, running in the same direction as the train. The middle bunks are folded down so that people can sit on the bottom bunk until they want to go to sleep which is another problem because you then have to make them get off when you want to sleep on either the bottom or middle bunk. Also in our compartment we had a lovely little family with an absolutely adorable 18 month old boy who found us all very entertaining, particularly my tongue!!
At about 9 o'clock there seemed to be a general agreement to pull the beds out so we did so and I settled into one of the middle bunks for a lovely long nights sleep. As if! I slept on and off throughout the night, it was freezing cold with the wind whipping through the train from the open windows and doors and it was a very jiggly and jerky train, oh and the bed was anything but soft and comfortable.
At 7 I gave up trying to sleep any longer and very ungracefully clambered down from my bunk and folded it up. It was now light so I could spend the rest of the journey doing my favourite past time; gazing out the window. This was even better now that we were in the scrubland that is the desert and I could spot the odd camel roaming around as we went by. By 10 o'clock it was really hot so Laura and I decided to go and sit with our legs hanging out the open door and continue our gazing from their. It was a little bit painful with bits of sand flying up and hitting my legs and the handle was disgustingly dirty, as was my face by the end, but it was so exhilarating. The train would randomly stop in the middle of nowhere for prolonged periods of time so at one of these stops, fenella, Laura and I jumped off the train for a little stretch. Whilst we were stood there the train started moving again so we had to scramble back onto the train giving us a nice little adrenaline shot first thing in the morning.
We eventually arrived at jaisalmer station, 18 hours later, and only an hour later than planned with no major mishaps which was amazing seeing as we chose to travel on Friday 13th! We crashed at our hotel for a couple of hours, cleaning off the multiple layers of dirt from the train, napping and refilling our stomachs which had been treated to crisps for dinner and breakfast. Once it had cooled down s bit, but not much, we wandered around the busy, narrow streets of jaisalmer through the towering, golden, sandstone buildings. Found our way to the amazing fort which towers above the city and wound our say through it, admiring the beautiful Havelis which are intricately carved patterns into the doorways and general frontage of the buildings. We located ourselves a little balcony cafe to sip on chai as the sunset over the desert which we watched from the fort battlements and then went out for a lovely indian dinner at a rooftop restaurant with a group of people playing traditional Indian music, then settled down to bed on our dirt cheap travellers accommodation.
Next day we packed up our bags and dropped off at the camel safari office before going back into the fort and walking the other way around it. At 1 we returned to the office and were packed into a jeep, with an American guy travelling India for 4 weeks, and driven for an hour further and further into the desert until we crossed a hill and saw a group of camels and camel men stood in the middle of nowhere. We took the opportunity to relieve ourselves behind a perfectly positioned tree and then mounted our trusty steeds. By this point, more people had joined us: 3 swedish girls doing volunteering in jaisalmer, 2 Aussies, a scot and a Brit who were on a gap year organised trip around India, their guide and a dutch-indian man also on their 'gap year' tour. We wrapped our scarves around our heads in true desert style to shield them from the burning heat of the sun and headed out into the unknown. My lovely camel was called papaya and he was very well behaved although not particularly comfortable as my legs were spread very far apart and he had a habit of just collapsing (probably under my weight) when he was told to sit which was a pretty terrifying ordeal.
We trekked for an hour before a little break under a tree and then carried on for another 45mins when our campsite for the night came into view. The sand dunes looked like they had been plonked in the middle of the desert because they were perfectly rolling, with no plants growing and a perfect gold sand, whereas the rest of the desert had lots of shrubs and bushes and trees sprouting from the ground - it was beautiful.
We all collapsed in a hot sweaty heap even though we hadn't really been doing anything other than sitting astride a wide camel, and were served nibbles and chai tea before climbing up onto the dunes and turning into kids again, rolling about and getting covered in sand. We then watched the sun set from atop the dunes which was stunning before descending to the campfire for dinner! We ate our curry and naan by fire light and it is safe to say it did not disappoint - its amazing what these guys can do on little fires in the middle of nowhere!
The camel men then got out their empty water bottles and used them as drums and sang to us all for a couple of hours whilst I alternated between star gazing and staring into the fire - it was mesmerising. Because we were literally in the middle of nowhere the stars were incredibly clear, I don't think I have ever seen as many, and we even got treated to seeing a few shooting stars - it was so surreal I had to keep checking that we actually were lying in the desert wishing on shooting stars. Once they had finished singing about camel safaris they put out a load of mats on the sand and gave each of us a thick blanket and we snuggled down under to the stars to go to sleep. Sand isn't as soft as you think it would be to sleep on but I kept myself happy by star gazing when I couldn't sleep.
We woke up with the sun the next morning, feeling surprisingly well rested and were served chai, porridge and toast (more exciting than our cereal at school) and then packed up our stuff, prepped the camels and jumped aboard them again. Actually I wasn't jumping anywhere, I was far to stiff from the ride the day before. We rode for just under an hour to meet the Jeeps again which drove us to see a deserted, 800 year old desert village and fort and to an oasis before heading back into jaisalmer. The company that we were with run a hotel so they let us use a room for the afternoon to freshen up before heading to the train station to catch our train to Jodhpur.
We arrived in jodhpur at 11pm and had a minor mishap with our hotel who hadn't got our booking and we full so sent us across the road to his brothers hotel, which was actually much nicer. After them making us check in and give all our details at midnight we dived into bed and slept like the dead.
The next morning we had a lovely breakfast (pancakes a day early ;)) on the roof overlooking the blue rooftops of jodhpur - known as the blue city - and up to the large fort rising out of the ground. We spent the morning wandering around the streets to find the clock tower and then caught a rickshaw up to the fort. We had an audio guide included in our ticket cost which was really good so we dawdled our way around listening to it and taking in the incredible views over the blueness of the city. We walked to a marble palace which we admired from the outside and then found a conveniently placed platform where we snoozed in the sun and then made an executive decision to head to a rooftop restaurant for the rest of the day until our train departed.
The train back to Gurgaon which a much easier ordeal as it was so much less busy and I was exhausted from our brilliant weekend so slept very well, until 5am when our train got in, only 4 minutes later than scheduled!! Whilst in the taxi on the way back from school we got a call from the very helpful sports teacher who informed us that Tuesday was a national holiday so there was no school. I have never seen 4 girls so happy as we were all dreading a day of teaching in our current state of exhaustion.
Overall it was a fantastic weekend and I didn't want to come back to the reality and challenges of school, however, the now very hot weather has made the teaching much better :)
Much love xxxx