Coloured Cities

Wednesday 30th April

- our final sights of Jaisalmer
- Epic Train Journey #3 - from the Yellow City to the Blue City

our Jodhpur train leaves today at 4pm - a nice, hot, sunny departure time - so we made good use of the hotel's 'later' check out time of 10am that we had managed to arrange and the last of the AC we were paying for. this also allowed the staff to first wake up and then get up in this decidedly off season period.

having enjoyed Jaisalmer so much, it was difficult to decide where to spend our last (half) day, so we started somewhere new, just South of the citadel at the Gadi Sagar Tank, once the only water sources for the whole town.

flanked by yellow sandstone ghats and entered through the large Tikon-ki-Pol triple gateway, it's a lovely, hassle free experience at the beginning of the day and an entirely gratis one.




in the early morning sun, a small group of boys were feeding a turmoil of large catfish at the surface, while elsewhere in the tank - essentially a small, man-made lake - was entirely still and peaceful.




from the shoreline and the water itself rise two pagodas; around the base of the latter, plastic pedalos huddle for hire, while beneath the former's carved cupola a man in traditional dress was waiting for tourists who he would regale with tunes from his musical instrument.


as it happened, he was rather good, putting in a sterling three minute demonstration of his art for his tip.


as we left, we almost literally bumped into three large Indian army men, including one patting a particularly large nightstick in his hands. we wondered what we had done! but they were only tourists, too, that morning. we've seen a lot of soldiers passing through Jaisalmer; its location near to various military bases and the occasional jet flypast reminding you of the relative proximity of Pakistan.

a blissful time after we arrived at the Gadi Sagar Tank, we jumped back in our waiting rickshaw and returned to the Fort and the July 8 cafe for some basic snacks and drinks. we spent a while there marvelling at the lack of skin cover or head gear exhibited by tourists passing through, as well as the almost endearingly Neanderthal behaviour of its hirsute male co-owner.

Edd and Neanderthal

his wife was very outgoing, even going so far as to tell us that she loved working in the cafe because it was the only place that she could be herself. at home, with relatives in situ, she said that she was the expected and required to be a meek, second class citizen.

eventually we could outstay their hospitality no longer and we walked lazily down and out of the golden citadel for the last time, stopping long enough for Philippa to buy more textiles (!). as they were so quiet, the Shahi Palace let us have our old room back for free for an hour or so, enabling time for a shower and even a few minutes of snatched sleep. it was but a short distance with all of our gear in the unpleasantly strong sun before we found a rickshaw agreeable to a fair price and we were at the railway station early.

on this occasion, the train was easy to identify. it even had booked passengers' names on a print-out flyposted to the outside of the carriage. what it did not have, however, was an engine that worked. it would be some 45 minutes after its scheduled departure that we would finally leave, the electrics finally kicking in and operating the ranks of triple fans overhead. for several minutes at the start, it was like being under a large hairdryer as the air inside the train was already so hot. we found out later that the average temperature during our stay in Jaisalmer was around 42C, hitting 45C on one day.

although the service runs all of the way to Delhi, where it arrives some 19 hours later, this starting leg of the journey is rather quiet. unencumbered by too many passengers - except some exasperatingly open oglers of Philippa - and with a smattering of Westerners and soldiers spread throughout its great length.


the train took the first half of the journey back down our route from Bikaner at a snail's pace, confusingly doubling back on itself at one point and stopping for prolonged periods at off-the-map desert towns. darkness had fallen by the time we went through Philoda junction once more, turning South this time and heading at speed - at last - towards Jodhpur.

the journey from Bikaner had been suffused with expectation and the mysteries of the desert, but heading back the delays and heat made us see less of the beauty and more of the dust, notwithstanding one batch of temple pavilions that appeared unexpectedly from our of the scrub at one point.


we arrived in Jodhpur after 7 hours; late, but not as late as we could have been. a major railway station, it had all of the usual Indian trappings; people sleeping, beggars, the homeless and the mutilated. our new home had sent a pick up, but he'd been too lazy to come to our platform, something to which they had insisted we agree. we spent 30 minutes noticing just how many large rats were living on the tracks; enough time, also, to be implored by an androgynous, naked apparition with no legs dragging itself around the platforms, shocking both in its description and also by the fact that the incident, now, seemed to fit somewhere between awful and normal.

a few phone calls and a rickshaw through Jodhpur's Old City's quiet evening streets and we were at Yogi's, a bright blue haveli located somewhere near the base of the massive Merangarh Fort. in the evening light we could not see it, only having just enough energy to choose a room and negotiate the price down a little. the day had been bookended by a beautiful morning in the Yellow City and a late, bleary eyed night in its Blue counterpart. tomorrow is pencilled in for a do-little day; at past midnight, that sounded just fine to us.

lots of love

edd & philippa

ps - both well and healthy