Yellow with a dash of Green and Blue

One of the ways to make the most of my stay in Rajasthan is to travel whenever possible and see as much of Rajasthan as possible. Keeping that in mind we decided to visit Jaisalmer over the weekend which is more than 12 hours away from Thanagazi.

During the never ending train journey I couldn’t help but see the huge tracks of barren land with some shrubs and trees growing on it. For miles and miles one could just see barren land till the horizon. It struck me that here lies a brilliant opportunity to generate solar energy in a place where unusable land and sunlight are in is in abundance. An energy starved India could do with whatever extra energy it gets from whatever source. Though I did see some wind mills in the area but I feel solar energy would be more efficient in Rajasthan.

We were going to freshen up in the guest house before leaving for the desert. The guest house was inside the Jaisalmer Fort. Unlike most other forts, the Jaisalmer Fort is not a property of the Government of India or converted to a hotel but is inhabited by the descendants of the King and the people who use to serve him. Numerous hotels, guest houses, restaurants, shops and houses make up the fort. I always use to wonder how life would be in a fort during the times of the king. Seeing the Jaisalmer I got a feel how it would have been.

Another thing that was struck me was the architecture of Jaisalmer. All the buildings in Jaisalmer are yellow made mostly from the yellow jaisalmeri stone. From the fort, to the hotels, shops, houses and even the police station, ATM and petrol pumps. All are yellow giving a unique standardization to the place. Also a lot of houses had very fine carvings on their walls and windows. So from the desert to the city, all our eyes could see was yellow (with a dash of greenery here and there and the blue sky whenever we bothered to look up).

We saw a couple of Jain temples in Jaisalmer which have to be marveled for the brilliant carvings on the ceilings, arches and the walls. The desert as we had expected to find on reaching Jaisalmer was not there. The sand dunes that we see in the pictures and the movies are actually another 40 kms away from Jaisalmer. The trip to the sand dunes was a good experience with a bumpy camel ride adding to the fun. The night was spent in a camp near the dunes where we were supposed to spend the night in tents. However, the weather in the open being windy and cool we slept in the open which was far better than the tents.

It was a nice small trip which I’m glad we took despite the heat and the distance.