Everywhere you go on the touristic trail in India you have to be careful about aggressive touts and rickshaw drivers. In Delhi the competition for trade was cut throat. There is always someone willing to act as your guide or take you somewhere that you should really visit. There was (I'm afraid) never an occasion when I received any information or guidance without there being a financial incentive for the giver either from me directly or by way of a commission from whoever's shop I ended up in. You learn to put up with the hassle, to shrug it off.
Arriving in Jaisalmer was different. The train's arrival meant a whole new crop of tourists would all be arriving at the same time. As you step out of the station the sight before you is amazing. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced this. Other people have related the same story since. I think Robin and Donna (my brother and sister-in-law) experienced the same when they visited a couple of years later.
As you exit the station there in front of you is an enormous crowd of hotel touts, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw drivers all yelling and screaming to get your attention. Every one of them desperately wants your fare and the desire is physical. The intensity of the competition for your trade is so great that there would be a real risk that you might get torn apart by competitors. The risk is nullified because the baying mob is held back by Policemen wielding that peculiarly Indian tool of crowd control - the lath, a stave about 6 feet long and perhaps an inch or slightly more in thickness. A fearsome weapon.
Somehow or other we all got a ride together and ended up in a hotel called The Pushkar Palace. Our "room' was a structure erected on the flat roof of the hotel and was basically 4 single beds in one long room. It was cool (in both senses) and it was cheap.
