The Golden City was a breath of fresh (but steamy and still smelly) air compared to Jaipur. Since we had absolutely no energy to search for a hotel, the first that offered within our budget was it. We ended up getting a spacious, air-cool room for the equivalent of less than $3 per person a night. We spent the rest of the day moaning at our intense stomach pains and being really angry.
The next we thought we would seek refuge on camel safari in the middle of the Thar Desert (only 60 miles from Pakistan!). We headed out of town on a paved road through the barren desert countryside dodging goats, cows, and camels along the way. We listened to Rajasthani gyspy music and stopped at an Indian truck stop, which after looking around, we decided it was officially the most random place we had ever been and was deserving of a picture.
Our driver said that we would stop here because it was a nice shop, but the giant, hopping rats convinced us otherwise. Upon stopping at a local hut, gypsy kids swarmed the car doors to get a glimpse at all of our western gadgets and skin. We drove to the sand dunes to meet our camels and go on an evening ride before sunset. Katie’s camel was a bit intoxicated, running her into almost every bush nearby. We were warned by many people that the camel-riding experience can be erotic and arousing—it wasn’t, but we definitely joked about it anyways. 
We watched the sunset, enjoyed our first non-toxic Indian air, and chatted with fellow backpackers over dinner. We slept under a blanket of bright stars, even catching several shooting stars as we talked ourselves to sleep, hoping desperately that the giant black beetles didn’t crawl on us in the middle of the night. We rode camels for another hour in the morning and caught a Jeep back into town.
That afternoon, it was blistering hot; we found our desert oasis in a hotel’s pool, which we basked in for several hours. That night we had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant overlooking the city with the only non-couples traveling in India. For our last day in Jaisalmer, we explored the city’s fort that is full of narrow alleyways similar to Venice and packed with shops and hotels. There is little traffic (what a relief) inside the fort’s walls—only stubborn cows and persistent salesmen block the pathways. The architecture inside has intricately-carved sandstone façades and the market carts around the walls have burlap roofs and large wooden wheels—definitely a snapshot from several thousands years ago.
The next we thought we would seek refuge on camel safari in the middle of the Thar Desert (only 60 miles from Pakistan!). We headed out of town on a paved road through the barren desert countryside dodging goats, cows, and camels along the way. We listened to Rajasthani gyspy music and stopped at an Indian truck stop, which after looking around, we decided it was officially the most random place we had ever been and was deserving of a picture.
Our driver said that we would stop here because it was a nice shop, but the giant, hopping rats convinced us otherwise. Upon stopping at a local hut, gypsy kids swarmed the car doors to get a glimpse at all of our western gadgets and skin. We drove to the sand dunes to meet our camels and go on an evening ride before sunset. Katie’s camel was a bit intoxicated, running her into almost every bush nearby. We were warned by many people that the camel-riding experience can be erotic and arousing—it wasn’t, but we definitely joked about it anyways. 
We watched the sunset, enjoyed our first non-toxic Indian air, and chatted with fellow backpackers over dinner. We slept under a blanket of bright stars, even catching several shooting stars as we talked ourselves to sleep, hoping desperately that the giant black beetles didn’t crawl on us in the middle of the night. We rode camels for another hour in the morning and caught a Jeep back into town.That afternoon, it was blistering hot; we found our desert oasis in a hotel’s pool, which we basked in for several hours. That night we had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant overlooking the city with the only non-couples traveling in India. For our last day in Jaisalmer, we explored the city’s fort that is full of narrow alleyways similar to Venice and packed with shops and hotels. There is little traffic (what a relief) inside the fort’s walls—only stubborn cows and persistent salesmen block the pathways. The architecture inside has intricately-carved sandstone façades and the market carts around the walls have burlap roofs and large wooden wheels—definitely a snapshot from several thousands years ago.
We had a 5 pm scheduled departure for Ahmedabad on an 11-hour sleeper bus, which would connect us to our train to Mumbai. Crazy Mr. J (our hotel owner) booked our tickets for this journey reassuring us it was a route taken by many. Still skeptical, we asked around and got similar answers. Since it was the most direct way to Bombay, we decided to hop on board. Waiting at the bus station, we were exposed to the worst of Indian touts. A solo Western traveler had at least 10 men swarming her with hotel options before she could even really get off the bus. Brady was screamed at by one them for offering the girl her recommendation. The men persisted for several minutes, shouting, pointing, and pushing to be the center of her attention. At one point, a fight even broke out—the situation was beyond ridiculous. Because there was absolutely no way to know when the bus we were taking had arrived or left (unless you read/spoke Hindi), we missed it by only a minute. We grabbed our bags and stuffed them into a rickshaw that whizzed us down the road to catch up. Luckily, we made it. We promptly received what would end up being never-ending stares from every passenger on the bus who just happened to be an Indian male—it was going to be a long ride. We took our “seats” which in reality was a filthy (rivaling that of a public toilet) double-bed platform above the seats. Thankfully, there was a window to open and a curtain to close. Then, the rattling began. After several hours of experimenting with every possible position to get comfortable (while minimizing contact with the disgusting seat), we decided it was the worst traveling experience we had. Somehow we managed to laugh about it, probably because the shock and actuality of the situation was too hard to believe. Needless to say, you get what you pay for. And while we did take the budget option (instead of a $100+ plane ticket), we are guaranteed to expect more expensive chiropractic bills in the future. It was only appropriate that Brady said the following:
“I don’t feel like I’m doing the world anymore; the world is doing me and it is not consensual.”
The bus flew for hours down a bumpy, dirt road causing it to sway and us to question our sanity. Nonetheless, we made it. We wondered why everyone was awake at 4:30 am when we arrived. Minutes later that was answered by the thousands of people carrying decorated Ganesh sculptures on their way to drown him in the river. This is a common Hindi festival to celebrate the deity Ganesh. We peeled ourselves out of the bus and creaked slowly to the train station to wait on no sleep for three hours before boarding a 9-hour train to Bombay. It sounds miserable and it was. We smelled terrible and probably looked even worse, but we can say we made it. We were skeptical about our train seats since they were dissimilar to previous ones. Rightfully so, when we boarded the train we were put in the second to lowest train class, sandwiched on benches between hundreds of Indians in an un-air-conditioned car (we’ll let you imagine the lovely smells that permeated this area). Unable to imagine ourselves in this situation any longer, we fought for thirty minutes to upgrade our ticket. This involved getting out of the train during a stop and running (luggage in-tow) down seven cabins and hopping on as soon as it started moving. We proceeded to walk up and down several cars in search for a conductor that could give us any sign of hope. No vacancy in AC—go figure. However, there was room in a fan-only cell that we still had to share with other locals. They called this first-class, but we failed to see any remote reason why this was the case. After 23 hours of travel, no sleep, and more than a day without a full meal; we arrived in Mumbai.
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