Rail roading to Jaipur...

Checked out of the super friendly New Tokyo Palace hotel--if you should have a couple of days free in Jaisalmer, this is the one I would recommend. Out at the railway tracks, located my reserved carriage & berth ready for the 5.00pm departure of the 'Delhi Express'. Jaisalmer is the "end of the line" in

Jaisalmer  railway station.

more ways than one--up against the Pakistan border and obviously in the rolling stock India railways allocates for this run into the capital from the back woods. The carriage was dirty and teeming with cockroaches: that was first class!--- pity the masses travelling back in unreserved! It soon became obvious when the train rolled, that we were over a bogey with oval wheels. Rocked, rolled & swayed all the way into Jaipur 12 hours later. Also strange, was the fact that the omnipresent on board wallahs who service the hungry crowds with water, sandwiches etc., had all disappeared to let the customers survive best they could. An alternative eating strategy is to hop out on to the platforms of the various halts and buy from the vendors. Problem with this is that sometimes the stops are two minutes, sometimes twenty.....one never knows.

          Tired and a little motion-sick  we steamed into Jaipur Central bang-on schedule at 4.15am---too early to try & check into ones pre-booked hotel, so squat down on the platform with the masses, who call the railway station home in India. Really pitiful to see old ladies cuddling little babies on rock hard (filthy) concrete, platforms. Not to upset the squeamish, can report that there were large nocturnal rats that scurry about, round & over the sleepers. Certainly tried not to doze & kept my eyes skinned, should one of those filthy sewer rodents come too near to me. Another life experience, and I know one that is to be repeated, as I have several middle-of-the-night train station arrivals scheduled in the next few weeks.

                       Travelling on trains in India does force the European traveller up- close and personal with his Commonwealth cousins---Indian people, so nice, but oh so keen to interrogate with a barrage of really personal questions—how old are you, how old is your wife (!!), how much money do you make, what is your SON’s profession—daughters are not seen as so important, etc etc. Generally, my Indian fellow compartment travelling mates cannot understand why an older man would choose to leave his family, to globe-trot for three months. My explanation that I had never visited India & so why not, never really seems to satisfy them.
                Funny story: Ate my evening meal last night in Jaisalmer Fortress, on the patio

Beer from a tea pot.....

of one of the many restaurants. A very hot evening, so I requested my cold 'Kingfisher' best Indian beer. The lady serving (unusual-always seems to be male servers) explained quite casually that they could only serve beer out of a teapot! She was quite abrupt with me when I queried the reason ---Rajisthan English is not always the easiest to decipher. Apparently the restaurant was situated between two temples and she was anxious not to disturb the spirits by displaying beer bottles on her tables. Bottom line; the beer tasted just great on a very hot night served from a tea pot!.