Jaisalmer - camping, dunes, history and more

After yet some time, the traffic started to thin and the bad bumpy roads made way to smooth tarmacs and sparse flora and fauna. At about 12.40 pm, we reached Barmer and went to Goodhall restaurant for lunch. As fancy as the name might sound, the food and ambience was very homely and the taste great. There’s a thing about windmills - I love them. There were so many on the way that I probably clicked each of those.

The tarmac continued to be at its absolute best and we kept on cruising through some best roads in India. At about 3 pm, the signboard read, “Welcome to Jaisalmer”. That was it! Finally, it was a dream come true. Soon, we left behind the city hustle and the even more barren desert started to welcome us. We had consciously chosen all the 3 nights’ stay at the dunes just to stay away from the hullabaloo, experience the dunes and clear skies. After a 40 minutes drive, we met our host Bheem Singh Solanki, who took us to the Desert Safari Camp. We checked in quickly. It was almost 4.30, we had the option to go for the safaris but tired from the long 10 hour drive, we decided to just explore the nearby dunes on feet. The best thing about this camp was that once you leave the camp premises, you find yourself in the dunes. We reached the top of the highest visible dune and admired the sunset. While at the dune, we also played some guessing game on which our camp was!

The evening had the folk artists ready to present the guests with traditional performances. We grabbed out seats in a corner, the mercury dipped a bit or two while the soothing tune of Kesariya Balam was sung by the artists. The performances were enthralling and we didnt realise it was 9 pm already. The performances later turned into a group dance to favourite bollywood tunes. The night was well spent with some Jim Beam and dinner under the stars.

The next morning, Anindya literally kicked me out of the bed (as usual) to watch the sun rise. Fortunately, I was thanking the geographic coordinates of Jaisalmer as it was just (!) 7 am. Capturing the morning sun on my canon, we proceeded for breakfast.

If you ever visit this camp, I bet you would like their poha most! The day was stuffed with the plan to visit all the regular attractions like Kuldhara Village, Jaisalmer Fort, Gadisar lake and an unusual attraction like Jaseri oasis. We headed to the abandoned village of Kuldhara first. We were hoping to meet a person named Suman who would share the story of the village with us, but unfortunately could not find him. Later I also read about the love story of a man who guards the village now and an Australian woman on a Facebook group. Didn't meet the man either! Guess this probably will draw me again to the place in the future.

Next we headed to Jaseri oasis. On the way, we were again stopped by the cops, friendly ones this time. They again asked us where we are headed to and let us go without further questioning. We reached the Google Maps coordinates of Jaseri and to our disappointment didnt find any pond or oasis. Sugourab did a quick climb up a slope and shouted in rejoice, “guys, it’s here!”. What we saw later was green water being tickled by the gentle breeze. I thought it was a great place to fly my drone and planned some shots there. Later, a tractor came to fill its water tank while playing loud music, killing the mood totally.

With the sun right above the horizon, we drove towards the city and stopped by Gadisar lake. I had seen a lot of “instagrammable” pictures of the lake and thought it must be really picturesque. There’s a reason you should not trust Instagram blindly. The approach to the lake was all in litters and it was full with crowd waiting their turns for boating. We took the stairs which offer slightly better view of the lake, but again the place was not clean and we could not spend more than ten minutes there. It was already 12.30 and the tummies signalled their need to top up. We decided to step in to The Trio which was right in the heart of the city, at a walking distance from the city parking. In the starters, we ordered something called a Kashmiri Kabab (yeah, I know we were in the western part of the country!) and it just appeared as the perfect choice! The kabab was absolutely worth gorging and had a layer of dry fruits coated which gave a sweet undertone to the spicy kabab. The main course had Kabuli naan and Mutton Saagwala, which again blew our minds, err tummies. Content with the food, my body yearned for a soft bed right then, but the excitement of visiting the much famous Jaisalmer Fort wasn't less either. As a bengali, Sonar Kella was always on the bucket list, courtesy the great Satyajit Ray. We hired a guide who agreed to narrate to us the rich history of the fort. The Jaisalmer fort is the second oldest fort of Rajasthan, dating back to 868 years, and is home to 3000 people. After a while, we reached the top of the fort which offered a majestic view of the golden city. There were several other attractions in the city but we had to plan going back to the camp as the camel safari and dune bashing were lined up during the sunset.

We returned to the camps, freshened up and took our seats (or stands) in the Thar. Amar, who was in charge of the Thar’s steering upped the volume of the stereo and drove like absolute crazy! At one point, he just drove up a 45 degree dune and in the next moment, descended down the dune making a sharp turn, as if it was child’s play. We grabbed the rails of the Thar with all force, lest we would be thrown into the sands! Once we reached the dunes, we found the camels waiting to take us to the safari. The camel owners took us for a nice 30 mins ride and all of us enjoyed it to the fullest.

The evening back in the camp was like the earlier evening, the only difference being, we enjoyed the cultural program from the comfort of our tent verandahs. It was also a good opportunity for the drone to show us what it was capable of in the night. It didn't disappoint.

On the final day, we had the best of Rajasthan planned. The day started with watching the sun rise, courtesy yet another morning kicking by Anindya, followed by breakfast. We headed to Longewala first, which was 105 kms from our camp. The roads were single lane till Ramgarh, albeit beautifully tucked amidst the desert, and often with windmills on either side. It was as if a motorhead was asked to lay the roads, and he did in such a fashion that he could zoom past the roads faster! After Ramgarh, the road is maintained by BRO and we know what they are capable of. It was an absolute delight to drive and soon we found ourselves arguing who would drive! At Longewala, we first visited the war museum, which had the newspapers cut out from the days of battle and arms and ammunitions on display. There was also an audio-visual show for 20 minutes which we watched. The story was captivating, but the video clips from the movie Border was a moodkill. I was expecting something original.

We had our lunch at Border cafe accompanied by Rajma Chawal and then proceeded towards Tanot Mata temple. The roads to the temple were even better. I wonder why F1 races are not organized here. We are not great fans of temples but visited this one for the history. It is said that the Pakistani army bombed this temple heavily during the ’71 battle but the temple stood unfazed. The army took charge of the temple since then and also takes the blessings of the Mata before any battles/wars. The road back to the camp was via a village named Ranau and we were mightily surprised by what Ranau had to offer. We experienced the most raw, pristine dunes we saw so far on the trip. It had only the wind patterns imprinted and clearly untouched by humans.

What a surprise! Again, I let the drone fly and please me with some great aerial shots capturing the essence of the village and the dunes. The results were again spectacular. By this time, I have had already logged about 40 hours of flying and was gaining more confidence with each flight.

On the final evening at the dunes and Jaisalmer, we again decided to walk to the nearest dunes to experience the sunset for one last time amidst the vast great Indian desert. We sat on the sand relaxed, immersing ourselves in chitchats, oblivious of the fact that the sun bid goodbye to us already.