jaisalmer

Day 20. Jaisalmer. I'm still getting to grips with the idea of eating with my hands (or to be precise with my right hand) in India. As you may know the knife and fork is not part of traditional Indian culture. My friend's Dad has summed up the philosophy of this succinctly saying: 'eating with a knife and fork is like speaking through an interpreter.' I don't mind eating with my hands but I make such a hopeless mess each time I try. I've begun to wonder which is more culturally insensitive: asking for a knife and fork or throwing curry and rice all over the table, floors, walls, and sometimes even the staff of the restaurant. I'm going to keep trying for the moment. Perhaps it is an art which can be crafted.

It was another interesting bus journey getting here. I'm almost finding the journeys more interesting than the destinations at the moment. On the bus I sat next to Vini (Vinita) a detached female social worker and HIV counsellor working across the Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. We had a good chat and I was able to ask her lots of questions about her job and quite a bit about how people with HIV and AIDS are treated in India (she felt that they receive adequate medical treatment but are mostly treated as outcasts by society). Vini is one of the first women I've been able to talk with at length, and she held very progressive views on social issues. During the bus journey we overtook about fifty army trucks carrying tanks. I joked they must be on the way to attack Pakistan and got laughs back which were a bit too hearty for my liking.

In many ways being in Jaisalmer is like being in a fairytale. The old Fort rises out of the desert and contains most of the city. Jaisalmer is set just back from the Pakistan border, and sometimes it may not rain here for up to seven years at a time. There has been a castle here for almost a 1000 years, and it stands as one of the world's oldest 'living' forts. The people of Jaisalmer also have the South East Asian disease of mangling the English in their signs and advertising: amongst others I've seen a photography shop offering 'mammary cards' and a chilled beer shop advertising the sale of 'child beer.' Sadly the beautiful and romantic buildings are not being conserved with the care that they should be, and there has been a lot of pulling about of the brick and original features to incorporate Internet cafes, restaurants, and hotels. There are also more serious problems created by the inadequate and overworked drainage system which is causing the foundations of the Fort to gradually collapse. Jaisalmer has been placed on the World Monuments Watch list of the 100 most endangered sights of historical importance in the world. Since arrival I've spent a fair bit of time inside Jaisalmer Fort including visiting the Maharaja Palace and the wonderful but small complex of Jain Temples, and I've also been inside the Laxminath Hindu Temple. Outside the Fort I've been down to the Gadi Sagar, a lake just outside the city walls, and the Havelis - three sandstone houses built by wealthy Jaisalmer merchants in times of prosperity. I've been hanging out a bit with an English girl called Gemma (from Bristol) who I met back in Jodhpur. This afternoon I'm venturing out into the desert to ride a camel and to watch the sunset over the sand dunes.

I've been staying at the Mehrangarh Hotel which is just outside the Fort. It has good points and bad points. I'm sharing my room with an enormous but unsociable gecko.

I've been reviewing my budget this morning and am pleased to find that I've stuck with ease to my 10 pounds a day target. In fact I've been underspending a bit. I'm having no bother withdrawing money at ATM machines and have slowly acquired an idea of how much rupees are worth and what fair prices are for most things.

I've just finished reading Our Man in Havana and have moved on to reading The Case of the Buried Clock by Erle Stanley Gardner. You may well have heard of the main character in the book: Perry Mason. Recently I was helping my grandmother to clean out a cupboard in her spare bedroom and we found the old yellowed book at the bottom of a cardboard box. Like the rest of the useless crap Grandma had stored up she couldn't remember owning it and had no use for it either and so asked me if I wanted it to read. I thought I'd give it a go and have been really enjoying the detective tale so far. It was printed back in 1958 and inside the cover is written in pencil 'Mr St Bezant, 45 Melbourne Road, Ipswich.'

My next stop (and my last in Rajasthan) is Bikaner. I leave tomorrow morning at 6am and will make the seven hour journey by bus.