The last day of the camel safari involved a short walk after breakfast to a village which specialised in the manufacture of hand made wool carpets. I dare say they were very nice but I didn't take a picture and can remember nothing at all. We then ambled on to some gardens which my notes describe as "Maharaja's gdn".
These days I am getting a reputation for being grumpy and as I approach my 49th birthday I may soon be able to count myself as a grumpy old man. I wasn't so old then, unless you think 30 is old. I did, however, have a grumpy sort of attitude to most of the very much younger silk road pedestrians. The main cause of my grumpy feelings was that among them were the "gap year" types. The worst of these would be the the ones who were having a gap year before going to university.
I suppose there is an argument that they might have gone on to university with some kind of experience under their belts, something to mark them out from the others perhaps. On the other hand they were so young that all they wanted to do was party and invariably couldn't wait to get to Australia and probably weren't disappointed when they got there.
Mind you, the graduates on a gap year weren't much higher in my estimation. Perhaps my memories of university days are viewed through rose tinted spectacles but it wasn't exactly hard work, was it? OK, there were lectures to go to; tutorials to prepare for and attend; essays to write; and the high pressure of exams at the end of each year. On the other hand, there were a lot of parties and rock concerts, gallons of beer was drunk (sometimes by the gallon) and there were other things that as a student at university it was almost expected that you would have a go at (which I have never regretted). There were girls too. In my case not too many, it is fair to say, and mostly right at the end (only one regret and I shudder when I think about it). Each year was three terms long and was punctuated by a month off around Christmas, a month off around Easter and then over 3 months off in the summer.
So 3 years at university amounts to nearly 18 months on holiday and a lot of the remaining 18 months was spent looking forward to parties at the weekends and getting out of one's head one way or another at various other times.
The question is: after such a good time why would you need a holiday? Exactly what do those university graduates, who now seem to consider a gap year as a right, think they have done to deserve a year off? To my mind most of them are simply putting off the inevitability of having to face real life. They are proof in themselves that university is not really a very good preparation for life.
My main beef with the gap year types is that they didn't seem to appreciate where they were. Some of them were only just old enough to get allowed into pubs at home and the graduates had brainwashed themselves into a belief that they had achieved something deserving of a trip of a lifetime which they then simply wasted by spending their time hanging out in groups of their own kind looking for western style entertainment.
Of course it was not universally true but some of them knew nothing at all about the cultures they were visiting and hadn't the faintest idea where they really were nor, which is the real pity, did they care.
So I am a grumpy old man. What's more, I am a grumpy old hypocrite. Why? Well, because my notes say "Lunch, temples and Maharajah's gdn". I did take the picture above which was the view from the shady spot where we rested. I didn't know where I was. I hadn't the faintest idea. I have had to do a bit of research to work it out and what I found out has disappointed me. I was going to write: "For all I know this could have been Amar-Sagar." The official "rajasthantourism.gov.in" site says "Just 6 kms. on the way to Luderwa [Amar-Sagar] is a natural spot developed by Maharawal Amar Singh in the form of a water reservoir in 1688 AD. The dams were constructed to hold rainwater. Several terraces are formed where summer palaces, temples and gardens were developed. On the south of the lake stands the exquisitely carved Jain temple constructed by Himmat Ram Bafna, the descendant of famous Patwas."
However, before just writing that (plagiarising the government website) and moving on, I thought I'd do a Google image search and discovered that we were indeed at Amar-Sagar and from the images available on the net showing the interior of the Jain temple there it is a crying shame that the nearest we got to the Amar-Sagar palace is exactly demonstrated by the photograph I took. We never saw any terraces nor the lake let alone the exquisitely carved Jain temple.
If I had known where I was I might have insisted that we actually go and have a look around. On the other hand I was probably enjoying a relaxing smoke under the tree. I remember Hookmah telling me that the desert is a great smuggling route. It is probably still the case these days. One can only guess at how hard it would be to police a desert that straddles the border of Pakistan. Hookmah told me that every night camel trains crossed the desert from Pakistan bringing in contraband such as Hashish from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We made an arrangement for the supply of a small amount of something sticky and black later in the day after our return from the desert.
The final leg of the journey was the 6 km walk to the citadel, a triumphant return.
We checked back into the Pushkar Palace and having spent 3 nights out in the open Grace and I opted to actually sleep out on the roof. This option amounted to the cheapest hotel accommodation of the whole adventure. Rs5 per night. At the official exchange rate that was around 15p.
We had the advantage of sharing the bathroom facilities of the room occupied by Mandy and Imogen and after a thorough shower, the first in 4 days, and freshening up we went out for dinner to the other top restaurant in Jaisalmer, "Monica's". Part of the freshening up process involved a shave. I have recommended having someone else to shave you before and I am not ashamed to do so again. It is certainly well worth it for under £1.00. I'm sure whether it is worth what they charge at some of the trendier salons that offer the service these days. There I was being shaved by a professional barber with a cut throat style razor (a brand new blade in it. Here the service is likely to be provided by a girl with a GNVQ (generally not very qualified) in some vocational course called Grooming Technology or such like fresh out of the local Tech, I mean University.
On our way back out we met Hookmah who made good on the arrangement we had made in the desert.
After dinner, thoroughly exhausted, another night under the stars on the roof of the hotel. Bliss.
