Jaisalmer: Of Holi, Bhang, Deserts and Forts #RememberRajasthan

Jaisalmer just came out of nowhere in my searches and I started planning a quick solo trip there during Holi without considering the fact what Holi there would be like and completely ignoring the primary filter I have for planning a solo trip, my safety.
It was going to be a solo trip because I am now officially addicted to it, up to the point that I do not even mention it to people that I am taking a trip, with the fear they might invite themselves.

I checked the travel options to the place, the bus and the train rides from Mumbai were too long. Luckily, I found some relatively reasonable flight options to get there from Mumbai on the day of my choice. For the stay, I stuck to the basics and chose Zostel.

After all these bookings were made, I realized, I had not checked the safety meter of this place. It was particularly important since it was Holi. Holi makes people lose their minds and their senses with or without the bhang supplements. This was a known fact from my 28 year old career of being a woman. So, I Googled some more and luckily Jaisalmer was very safe and it was also safe during Holi. Additionally, I made a call to Zostel to confirm the same since I was to reach at 12 pm on Rangapanchami.

HOLI🎨
The day arrived rather quickly and before I knew it, I was packed and ready to take off from Mumbai on the 21st morning when the city was just waking up to play holi with all its glory and colours. It was not until I reached the gates of Jaisalmer Fort and saw the holi being played there, that I realized the holi in Mumbai was nothing compared to the one played here.
Jaisalmer fort still has people residing inside it and Zostel is located inside the fort walls.
Fortunately, I met 2 girls at the airport who were headed towards Zostel and we decided to share the cab from the airport.

We were informed by the locals at the Fort entrance that we would have to walk all the way up to Zostel from the fort gates which was around a kilometer long route, most of it uphill. Now in addition to having to drag our bags, we knew we had to fend ourselves from the incoming rangpanchami players too.
As we made our way to the gate, we saw a few men waiting at the entrance, they were throwing colours on whoever would pass. We tried to ignore them but they stopped us and told us that if we didn’t have any colour on us, we’ll be easily noticeable and would be subject to a lot more of it inside. So, we allowed them to put tikkas on us, rookie mistake. Only once we entered the fort gates and saw the people there, did we realize, there was no way we would be able to disguise ourselves as a part of ‘that’ crowd. Everyone was coloured to the core, the streets, the people, the shops, the dogs, everything had at least 4 layers of colour on them, colour was just in the air.
As we walked among the people, it felt very similar to a Zombie apocalypse and we, the last few remaining survivors.

Further, we had to enter a very small lane, it felt like all the houses were closing in on us and every person standing outside the house was a threat. The men especially, the most dangerous and widely spread species were luckily not too bad, because even if they didn’t touch us and respected when we said no, they did throw colour at us from far.

Finally, we reached Zostel, it's entrance was very narrow and it was filled with rainbow-coloured people, a person ushered us in quickly protecting us from them. Once inside, even though most of the place was stained with colours, I noticed it was beautiful.
It was a narrow, vertical structure, with paths leading to the various rooms, dorms and common sitting areas. The best place I found in this Zostel was the open sitting area overlooking the whole of the Jaisalmer city from the top. The common room was just besides it, an enclosed space with very huge and colourful glass windows. The whole place was mystifyingly beautiful.

Since my check-in was at 3 pm and everyone including the staff was busy playing Holi, I made myself at home and looked around. Holi for me has always been about locking myself in a room, hidden away from the crowds who play with colours. But here I was this year, right in the middle of it, coloured all over. I even had a moment of fleeting thought, of choosing some of my relatively old and sacrificial clothes and heading out into the streets among the people. But then instead, I found myself a good cozy spot on the roof to look at the ensuing events on the streets.
The locals were singing folk songs, while playing the dhol along with visitors who had come to play holi with them. It was amazing to watch Holi being played in such a traditional way.

VYAS CHHATRI☠️
As evening came, I was checked into my dorm room and met a few more girls. We all had our doubts if we would be able to get out on that day as a result of Holi, but to our surprise, everything had returned to normal, the bhang had left people's bodies and everyone was busy cleaning the streets.
We all girls decided to head out to Vyas Chattri, a place where we could watch the sunset.
We were a group of 7 girls and we crammed ourselves in one auto rickshaw (I don’t know if the money saved was worth the cramming) and headed to Vyas Chattri. As we entered the gate we realised that in addition to it being a sunset point, it was also a cremation ground. There were tomb stones and ashes all around. But completely ignoring all of it and treating it as our very own tourist spot; everyone of us got busy clicking pictures.
The place was very scenic and the pictures we got were very beautiful, but in the end, it was a fancy crematorium and we had just clicked pictures of ourselves with some very fancy tombstones. There were many people there by the time the sun was setting and we all found a good spot for ourselves to enjoy the sunset. After sunset, most of the people left, we decided to stay back for the quiet till we were driven out of there by the security.

BHANG🥴😵
On our way back we all girls decided to have some bhang. There was a Government Authorised very famous shop just outside the Jaisalmer fort and we all made our way towards it. It was a small shop with a little seating at the back, we all ordered thandai and gulped it down quickly.
None of us had ever had it, so we decided it would be better for us to head straight for Zostel before any episode took place.
Once inside Zostel everyone got busy with their own thing. I headed to the roof top restaurant, ordered myself a paratha and enjoyed the view of the nearby temple in the moonlight and felt the bhang slowly kick in.
My bhang experience was like nothing I’ve had before. I was feeling a little light headed at first, but as I headed to my favourite spot overlooking the city, my state of mind only went downhill from there. It was the best spot for the pleasant nights of Jaisalmer. I felt like I was flying. My fear of heights was heightened; I could feel myself being pulled out of the balcony and into the vast open city. After this, I heard a wolf like cry coming from a far corner of the city. This was odd, but I was sure I wasn’t hallucinating. This howl was followed by numerous other dogs barking simultaneously from various parts of the city.  Now my bhang-stricken brain took me to an article I had read when Tsunami had struck India long back and how animals had sensed it coming and had found safe refuge beforehand. So that night I became certain that not a Tsunami, but an earthquake is going to strike Jaisalmer and we were going to die.
All I wanted to do at that point was to run out of Zostel and out of the Jaisalmer fort gates and into the vast open city space, where I wouldn’t be touched by an earthquake, which I had just predicted, with the help of the city dogs. But fortunately after looking at the time which was around 12 am, I took a decision to stay inside Zostel, and go to sleep instead of making a run for my life in the streets of Jaisalmer like a mad woman.
This also meant my Bhang stricken brain had made a decision to die instead of surviving. Now I thought Bhang makes you think better, clearer and I could feel that my thinking capacity had increased for sure, but then my brain had also made a decision to just sleep and die instead of surviving when I had just received some divine knowledge about a future event, so we don’t know. I made my way to the dorm room and slept off.

GADISAR LAKE🚣
Luckily, when I woke up at 4.30 am I was safely in bed with all the walls intact. The volunteer at Zostel had scheduled some activities for us that day. The first thing for the day was the aarti at the Shree Laxminathji Temple at 5.30 am. My Bhang stricken brain had not fully woken up so I decided to skip it and instead joined the group at Gadisar lake for the sunrise. The lake was wide and beautiful with some great architecture along the sides and a few structures inside the lake too.

After sitting there for a while in the silence, we had some really unhealthy but exceptionally tasty breakfast from the local shops. Jaisalmer has a lot of street vendors selling Kachori either in Dal or Aloo options, Dal pakwaan, Samosas and laddoos. One also has to try out the dal baati in Jaisalmer.

JAIN TEMPLES🛕

Later that day we visited the Jain temples located inside the Jaisalmer Fort. We went around in a group with the volunteer guiding and telling us about the history of the temples and showing us around, but I promised I would return to this place again. I wanted to have a good look at all the carvings again. It was a group of 7 temples and utterly confusing to navigate through, so I was glad I stuck to the group, for my first visit there.

DESERT SAFARI 🏜️🐫
I had signed myself up for the Desert safari organized by Zostel. There are a lot of Desert Safari organisers in Jaisalmer. The one organized by Zostel was organised by some locals and was what I exactly wanted. We were promised tents at the most, the cost was within my budget, I met a lot of people at Zostel and they all had signed up for the same night, so I knew I would have great company.
We started out in the afternoon after the Jain Temple visit. They had organized transport since it was almost 40kms away from the main city. On the way, we made a stop at an abandoned village, Kuldhara, which had an Old woman’s tale attached to it. It looked rather spooky to me even if there were many people there when we visited it.
Once we reached the campsite in the desert, we saw the magnificent desert was strikingly beautiful with the sand dunes neatly laid in front of us and all around us, far-off we could see several systematically lined windmills and a few bushes and cacti too. We were allowed to go anywhere among the sand dunes, so we all started walking and exploring. The place where the safari was organised was the ‘Desert National Park’. There were no other camps near us and it was like we had the whole desert to ourselves. Soon after sunset, we were served some tea and hot pakodas to silence our hungry bellies at least for a little while. After the sunset, there was complete darkness around us. There was only the faint light from the fire where the organisers were hurriedly making the arrangements for the food. They had laid up some beds in the open, and people were sitting, casually talking to each other in the darkness. It was starting to get cooler and we forgot that this place was burning hot just a while ago.

As we chatted, lay on the beds and in the sand, I was spell bound looking at the vast night sky, it was as if I had only seen the nearest of stars all my life and suddenly in that desert, I could see the stars which were much farther than the rest.

All I wanted to do in that moment was to lay still and stare at that spectacularly beautiful night sky, all night long. After some time, dinner was announced, and a fire was lit for us to sit around and eat. Once we made our way around the fire, they served us simple but tasty sabzi, chapati, dal and rice. After dinner some of the locals sang us some lovely folk songs and we had a jolly time.
As the night progressed, the moon came up and the beautiful stars disappeared in it’s bright light. But the moon's light did cast a beautiful silvery hue over the sand and whole desert lit up.
At the camp site, we were provided a bed and heavy blankets to sleep under. Because of the tiring day we all had, everyone was asleep in no time.
That night will be etched in my memory forever.
The next morning I woke up just in time for the sunrise. I walked a bit away towards it and sat on one of the sand dunes. Another person from the camp site joined me and slowing there was a crowd gathering behind us to watch the sun rise in that desert.
We quickly had instant noodles and fruits for breakfast and after bidding adieu to the desert, we were on our way back to Zostel.

NATHMAL KI HAVELI, BAA RI HAVELI & RAJA KA MAHAL 🏯🏰🖼️

Later that day I visited some of the places that were left to see. I hadn't really taken the desert Safari into consideration while planning the trip and I realised that I wouldn't be able to visit all the places that were to see in Jaisalmer. So I chose Nathmal ki Haveli, Raja ka Mahal and Baa ri Haveli. I spent the rest of the day in these places and all three were aesthetically beautiful and equally mesmerizing. The Kuku Coffee Shop and City view point are great options to enjoy the sunset from, you can see why the city is called the golden city.

JAISALMER FORT WALK🚶🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️
The owner of Zostel Jaisalmer was a kind and a humble man who had spent most of his childhood and later years living inside the Jaisalmer fort. He knows every nook and corner of the fort and organises a Fort walk on most days for Zostel's patrons whenever he is around. That evening he had one for us as well. I was excited to hear about the story of the fort and it’s history. I happily signed up for it and it turned out to be a great evening. For a person who organized and conducted the same tour multiple times, his excitement knew no bounds. He spoke with such passion and took us around with such pride, like a small kid trying to show the guests how beautiful his home was. Even though I was staying inside the fort all these days and had walked in and around multiple times, it was only when I saw it through his eyes did I see and appreciate it’s real beauty. Jaisalmer fort has a great history and each and every thing inside has a story attached to it. The people I met in those days, were some of the warmest I had ever come across.

For dinner again I went to sit on the roof. I sat there eating silently as the bells from the nearby temple chimed away.

The next day I was to leave for home, I had half a day to spend, but I also wanted a relaxed one. So I decided to visit the 7 Jain temples again that morning. I did exactly what I wanted to do. I went to each of the temples one by one, walked slowly, calmly sat wherever I wanted, saw all the intricate carvings on the walls and ceilings and relaxed. There weren't many people there, so I had the silence to accompany me too. As I left the city that afternoon, I remembered why I had planned a trip in the first place, it was to find a place where I could just breathe and here I was taking back with me a bag full of moments I had stolen for myself throughout the trip. I was taking back with me the memories of the warm afternoons and the cool nights, the temples, the Havelis there, the dorm room straight out of a Rajasthani movie, the Bhang that never really left my mind or the Holi colour that never really left my belongings and most importantly the strangers who became friends.