Sleeping under the desert stars 1/13

We headed out to tour the fort this am. Jaisalmer is the golden city because it's made out of sandstone. It's the only city that's stood up to its color name. It's a small town so not as dirty and crowded. We took some shots of the detailed work in the sandstone around the windows and terraces. The narrow roads in the dirt have a Fez-like-souq maze to them but too small to get lost. We got some books for our next leg of our journey from a deaf-owned bookstore. 

I walked past a lady's shop (the only female owner we've seen) and she says "nice hair- it looks like noodles!"  Umm thanks? She sucks me in w her chatter about going to school and some of her sales goes to the women of this village and women's right, blah blah. Anyways, she suckers me in and I buy stuff from her for too much. Oh well, I'll just convince myself that it's going to help women. At least I felt w her instead of another dude. Way too many dudes here. 

We leave for the desert in the late afternoon. We reach the "safari" about an hour outside town. Andy and I got on our own camels while the dudes walked them. Getting on was easy but staying on when the camels got up was challenging, especially since I wasn't prepared. 

We walked out into the desert and up the sand dunes to watch the sunset. Little kids came around trying to play music for tips and we weren't having it. They are annoying little suckers. Apparently telling them they owe you money for making loud noises is a good tactic and they left. The sun set as a huge intense red ball in the sky w no clouds to showcase the amazing colors. 

We jumped on the camels w our walkers and galloped back to the "resort". Riding on a running camel was nuts and fun. Those things are fast and slightly awkward when they trip on a branch. Now was the "cultural show" and dinner. I was really hoping we'd escape a cultural show. It actually wasn't bad. It was a bunch of dudes playing an accordion, bongos/drums (I'm a sucker for drums), these wooden clicker-like instruments, and a lovely lady dancing and balancing stuff on her head (pot of fire, tall statue). Dinner wasn't bad either. We started off weird colorful pork rinds (I think), peanuts and beer. Then we had the Dhal Bhat of India- maybe it's Thali? Not greasy (finally!!), curry yogurt, desert beans, other different stuff. Sanjay got shitcanned on rum and was telling Andy how we should drink some to sleep well and "have a good marriage". There's a fine balance between rum and good marriage there Sanjay. 

Then we headed to the desert to sleep under the stars. Only 5 out of 15 of us took that option vs a mud hut. We rode the camel cart out into the night.  The camel makes a weird gurgling/snorting/sticks out his tongue noise apparently when it's cold. A guy laid down some blankets for us. Luckily we had our sleeping bags so we were really warm. We fell asleep under the Milky Way in the dark quiet.