Change In Plans

ZOLA ECSTATIC

Jaisalmer - Rajasthan - India

This post is about the second half of our day in Jaisalmer, after returning from our tour of the Fort and the old town.

India (the person) and I were dazzled by the hand-crafted beauty of Jaisalmer Fort and by the grandness of the havelis (old mansions) in the old town. We were also saddened by their evident decay, both from having excess water erode the foundations and from general overcrowding and neglect.

A visit to ancient man-made Lake Gadisar, just outside the city, did not make us feel any better.

Lake Gadisar is actually a reservoir, constructed in 1367 (!) to provide water for the people and animals of the desert town. For more than 600 years, it was the primary source of drinking water. Even after artesian wells took over the primary function in the 1970s, people used to swim and row on the lake, taking refuge from the heat of the Rajasthani desert.

We were warned by our local guide for the day, Mr. Mahendra, that the water levels in Lake Gadisar were currently a bit low, due to poor rains, and that the lake was probably too polluted now to swim. What we saw was actually pretty awful.

The depth appeared to be about 2 meters below normal, and the ghats (spiritually significant steps that are supposed to lead directly down into the water) ended with several meters of dusty ground before the waterline. An island shrine was stranded on dry land, 30 meters from the water.

The water level, though, is fundamentally beyond anyone’s control. If the rain doesn’t come, the water level will be low.

CATFISH

What was harder to look at was the green and greasy water itself, and the unbelievable amount of garbage floating on its surface. We watched two men come down to the waterline and empty a bag of garbage directly into the lake. They explained to us that the papers and other refuse “had been used in a wedding”, and that “Hinduism required disposal in the lake”. Then they threw in the garbage bag and walked off.

The only sign of life in Lake Gadisar was a mass of dozens of large catfish, roiling the surface of the water as people (our kids included) fed them handfuls of rice puffs. Their slick gray bodies and their gaping little whiskered mouths were truly revolting to look at.

Even with good rains, I think it will be a while before anyone is able to swim in Lake Gadisar again. This is too bad. Indrajit, our wonderful guide, is a naturalist and a serious conservationist. He had to just shake his head and lament softly for how much work is still to be done.

On the positive side, Jaisalmer has scores of modern windmills, spinning away in the desert, and providing a significant percentage of the city’s electricity. Also, two eco-friendly and water-neutral hotels have opened within the fort. All is not lost.

Late in the afternoon, Mr. Mahendra organized a camel ride in the desert for us. We drove about 20 km west from the hotel, over the best paved road we have seen in India. Being so close to Pakistan, the military has made the passability of these roads a top priority.

CAMEL CARAVAN

We parked a couple of kilometers from where the flat, scrub desert turns into sand dunes. There were literally hundreds of camels by the side of the road, and hundreds of tourists, Indian and foreign, mounting up and riding toward the setting sun.

Based on our experience in Morocco, all four of us felt like camel-riding pros. Zola and India (and Indrajit) each rode alone, and Tallulah and I rode together. The camels were bigger, and saddles were much more comfortable than the ones we had seen in the Sahara.

As each little tourist group set out, it quickly attracted a small entourage of boys in school uniforms selling cold drinks, and men selling snacks. The boys walked alongside us, asking again and again, “Do you want Pepsi? You promise to buy from me? You promise?” A 12-year old named Vijay walked the full two kilometers out to the sand dunes by my side, asking his three questions every minute or so.

The great long tourist caravan traveled in a line for 45 minutes until it hit the low sand dunes, and then spread out like a blossom in the desert. Little groups of 5-6 riders climbed and claimed individual dunes, with latecomers like ourselves forced to press on to find a dune to call our own.

When we stopped and dismounted, a larger group of drink sellers and chip sellers converged on us. We learned to say, politely, “Nahi. No thank you. Nahi,” and invariably the sellers said goodbye and walked off.

Just before sunset, we were approached by two young women with jewel and make-up bedecked faces, dressed in beautiful sarees and head wraps for dancing. With their brother accompanying on a drum, they danced and sang a lively desert song which we had heard many times in Pushkar. Eventually the dancers had me and India and (creating particular excitement for them) Tallulah all whirling with them in the sand. We paid them a little bit of money, and they moved to the next dune and were repeating the performance within minutes. Zola studiously ignored the dancers, and enjoyed eggrolling down the sand dune as if he were in a suburban back yard.

The sunset over the desert was beautiful. Our main camel herder (who had walked out next to our little caravan) climbed on a camel, and invited Zola to join him for a gallop across the sand. It was wonderful to see the look of pure joy on our son’s face as they came thundering back along the ridge of sand dunes, the pink sky behind them.

Eventually we all mounted our camels again, and rode back in the gathering twilight.

Prior to actually arriving at the camel site, I had imagined that our sunset camel ride in India would be very similar to the one that we took in Morocco two months ago. I had envisioned splendid isolation, as we trekked alone into the high dunes, with no evidence of humanity in the windswept sand.

This is India, though, and isolation, splendid or not, seems to be in short supply. The 500 or so other riders, the camel herders, the entourage of drinks and chips sellers, the roving dance trios, and the various other hangers on, combined to make this a distinctly Indian and wonderful experience.

We all loved it, as we are loving pretty much everything about India.

Jaisalmer has been wonderful, and very thought provoking. Tomorrow we head out to our last stop in Rajasthan: Udaipur.