India Day 12.

I

Jaisalmer is known as the Gold City because of the golden colour of the sandstone. And, like Jodphur, it has an immense fort. And you know what? In looking at my pictures, I think I may have mixed up a few, some from yesterday's fort look like they may belong in today's. Or maybe not. I imagine that all forts built within a few hundred kilometers of each other, and within a few years of each other, by basically the same type of people probably look really similar.

I am becoming weary of forts. They are all magnificent, and I love wandering through them, but trying to keep names and dates and maharajas and maharanis straight is tiring my mind. So let's show a few photos and then move on to something new. 

I just googled it, it was actually built in 1159 and is one of, if not the, largest walled city in the world. 

Outside the main gate there are a lot of locals performing for money. This little girl was only about 9 or 10, not interested in going to school at all.

Battlements (is that the right word?) at the top of the fort.

Lots of interesting shops inside this walled city, it's actually called "a living fort" because about 3000 people live inside. It's riddled with small, winding lanes that have homes, shops, guest houses, small restaurants, shrines and temples, as well as, strangely enough, beauty parlors. I saw two....in case you need an emergency wash & dry in the midst of your sightseeing.

Making puppets, which are a big thing here. Many hotels have free puppet shows in the evenings.

I bought some spices at one of the many spice shops.

However, before we went into the fort, we made a stop at Gadi Sagar Lake & Tank, which was the main water supply for Jaisalmer until 1965. What an odd and uninteresting place to stop, I thought. Well, it was built in 1367, so that's sort of interesting, and it's surrounded by beautiful temples and shrines as well as the ubiquitous cows.

 

 One can also go for a boat ride, if one chooses.

But what one can really do, is buy a loaf of bread for 15 rupees, which is about 30 cents, and feed the catfish. 

That didn't strike me  as anything remotely interesting until I rounded the corner and saw this writhing, creepy, ungodly mass of this:

Ugh. The sight gave me chills, and can you imagine if you fell in??? I can almost feel their heavy, slimy bodies pushing against me, those suckery mouths grasping at my skin, thinking I might be food. They would be too slippery to grasp and those horrid tentacle-things would brush all over me as I would be pushed slowly to the bottom of the lake. Ugh again. Of all the horrible things I saw in India, I found this the most disturbing. Yuck. Let's go for a walk and look at some havelis instead.

We also walked through an older part of the city to see three well known havelis. "Haveli" is a generic term for a mansion or palace, and these three were pretty amazing. The architecture was incredible, they all look like they're made of lace, and not sandstone.  

Some of them have small museums inside, some are guesthouse and hostels, some have shops and some are privately owned and live in.

It was confusing to look up and see such opulence, and then to look around and see such poverty.

The streets were filled with garbage, everywhere, not just in this area. Not only do cows roam around, so do pigs and goats.

But enough of that, for tonight we ride camels!