Jaisalmer

In Jaisalmer Fort, always remember to look up.

I came here last in India and, after two days on a camel in the nearby desert, I had a morning to explore the fort.

The beautiful buildings aren’t just inside. On the way from my hotel, I kept ducking down side-streets (and a tunnel inhabited by cows) to find buildings with gorgeously carved facades. And there was always another side-street with more buildings, some so close you could barely make out details in the shadows, and I didn’t have enough time to explore them all.

And they were on the main road too, amid shop signs, electrical cabling, cows, bikes, an otherwise fairly usual street. Most of all, though, they were in the fort.

It’s not very big: you follow a cobbled path up the hill, through a few gates, and into an area of narrow streets lined with these yellow, carved buildings and an array of souvenir shops, bright with clothes and puppets, offering marvellous selections of print-blocks, massage balls, opium pots and miscellaneous metal knickknacks. Without a map you’ll double back on yourself soon enough. Avoid the cows. In Jaisalmer they nudge, hard, to the amusement of the nearby Indians, or they charge down the tiny streets and you have to be pulled aside by a woman running a shop whose proceeds go to help rural women suffering sexist oppression. The shop’s called Bellissimma and the owner, Bobby, is very pleasant to chat to, although she speaks English fast. She henna’d my left arm, after the one I got on my right arm in Jaipur almost entirely faded in the desert. If I recall correctly, various bits of it mean luck, love and health.

Nearby, a man who owned one of the old houses – they’re called haveli – invited me inside, saying I was free to walk through it alone. I passed through dusty old rooms, rooms with blue ceilings and decorative mirrors, and got onto the roof.

Of course, he had a shop and showed me various things, but was very gracious about my decision not to buy anything. If only I’d had more space in my bag and more cash. Swing by his place if you’re in the city.

Top left of that is a bit of Jain temple, one of complex containing seven or so. (Curious fact about Jain temples: menstruating women aren’t allowed inside. I assume we’re ~*~impure~*~ during our natural mostly-monthly process. Thanks, dudes.) They certainly are pretty, though. Imagine this, but lots of it:

And here’s a rooftop, glimpsed through a narrow vent-gap:

And a shrine inside one of the temples:

I also went walking around about half of the fort’s perimeter, which is an entirely un-used walkway. I got there around a cow, above a low wall, and walked among a light assortment of litter, excrement, thorny bushes and at least one shy street dog. It’s odd that no one’s developed it for the tourists. It gives good views over the town below, it’s a nice wide walkway, it’d be safe for children with not too much adjustment. It’s peaceful, though.

I surprised and amused three shopowners when I emerged from an overgrown, un-used plot adjacent to the walled-off walkway, and on I walked, retracing some of my steps until it was time to leave.