India. Jaisalmer

  Jaisalmer was the starting point on our way to visit the Thar Desert... We spent two days in the city, purchasing light and comfortable clothing for the hot climate, enjoying the unusual "Golden City," and booking a camel safari in the Thar Desert with an overnight stay in the dunes through a local travel agency...

 Map of our journey through India...

  Setting off early in the morning from Jodhpur by train, we remembered how cool it is to travel by Indian trains... Sitting on the third berth of the budget Sleeper class and drinking masala tea, which is periodically sold in the carriage...

  Jaisalmer is the farthest city in the desert and the last station of the train, beyond which the tracks end. By the time we reached the last station, the train was almost empty...  

 Upon reaching Jaisalmer, we immediately headed from the railway station to the Trotters travel agency located in the city center...

   We found out about the Trotters travel agency through good recommendations on the internet, so we didn't waste any time and immediately booked a two-day camel safari with them... After the safari, they also offered the possibility to spend some time in one of their hotel rooms to take a shower and rest... Since our safari was to start at dawn the next day, we decided to stay in their hotel for the first night as well, paying extra for one night... The view from the rooftop here was simply amazing...

  The uniqueness of Jaisalmer is its sandy fortress, where people live, and which is the central part of the city. After settling in, we went up to the rooftop café of our hotel to rest a bit from the heat and drink masala tea while enjoying the view...

  Then we set off to find clothes for traveling through the desert and generally for traveling in India - this is a common practice when we travel in Asia. Finding one of the shops, we spent about an hour trying on clothes, and eventually bought a pair of aladdin pants and a shirt... The shopkeeper didn't convince me to buy a turban... Instead of a turban, we had scarves, which we later bought in the city...

  

  Entering the city-fortress, we immediately saw camels, as a festival was taking place at that time where camels played the main aesthetic role...

  Jaisalmer is definitely a tourist city with many interesting things and decorations...

  Passing through the main gates, we delved further into the walls of the "sandy city-fortress"...

  

  Just as we went a little deeper, we immediately saw the Chandrakanta Arts shop, we liked the design of the paintings displayed outside so much that we couldn't pass by...

  We met the artist and bought two t-shirts painted by him... We really liked his drawings of a hermit-sadhu and a Rajasthani brahmin...

  Then we continued our walk through the incredibly colorful streets of the fortress...

 We already had a new look that better matched the colors of India...

  We met adorned camels again in another small square, where there was a whole performance with drums and music...

  The main square of the fortress near the palace...

 The Jain temple dedicated to Parshva - one of the enlightened teachers of Jain philosophy - stands out beautifully...

  In the evening, we got closer to the walls of the fortress to see it in the rays of the setting sun...

  Generally, for sunsets, we always try to choose a special place... So, this time we climbed up to one of the rooftop cafés with a nice view of the old city-fortress...

  Returning to our room, we bought one bhang lassi (with marijuana), which is legal in this place... That evening seemed calm and with elements of relaxation...

 The next day, early in the morning, we set off for a day and a half with an overnight stay in the desert... Returning after a super adventure on camels in the desert, we visited another Jain temple located almost 20 kilometers from the city...

  

  Jainism (from Sanskrit जिन, IAST: jina, "winner") is an ancient dharmic religion that emerged in India around the 9th-6th centuries BC. According to the teaching itself, Jainism has always existed. The most famous narrator of older traditions of the teaching is Mahavira, better known as Jina ("winner")... The philosophy and practice of Jainism are primarily based on the self-perfection of the soul to achieve omniscience, omnipotence, and eternal bliss. Any soul that has overcome the bodily shell remaining from previous lives and has attained nirvana is called a jiva...

  The teachings of Jina (Mahavira) are not much different from those of Buddha Shakyamuni, even the terminology is usually the same... Reading the sacred books of Jainism, it seems like we are talking about Buddhists... The difference between the two teachings lies in the greater importance for Jains of self-mortification-asceticism as a path to enlightenment. According to Jain teachings, Mahavira was the 24th Tirthankara (Jain enlightened teacher)... More than 200 years before Mahavira, the 23rd Tirthankara was Parshva, to whom this temple is dedicated. The historical existence of both Jain enlightened teachers is proven. Parshva is one of the most popular objects of worship among Jains. Image of the enlightened Parshva...

 

  Returning back to Jaisalmer, we left our things in the room and went for a walk around the city, replenishing ourselves with local street food...

   That's how milk is boiled down on one of the streets of the city... But we didn't want to try this drink...

 Indians, especially in small towns, and Jaisalmer has only about 80,000 residents, love to take photos with foreigners, and they constantly ask to take selfies with you... We almost never refused and sometimes we ourselves took photos with the most colorful Indians...

  In the administrative center of the desert region, there is also the artificial Gadisar Lake, dug back in 1156 and currently supplied with water through India's longest canal, about 650 kilometers long... Interestingly, this canal, whose main idea was to bring water from the Himalayan rivers to the desert, was designed back in 1952 and completed only in 2010...

  We rented a boat for half an hour to float a bit on the lake... 

  Then we went to have ice cream at a rooftop café with a view of the Jain temple...

  And returning to the hotel, we climbed the rooftop to look at the fort in the evening colors one more time...

 At eight in the evening, we had a night bus to Pushkar with sleeper seats... Waiting for the bus near the railway station, we had an omelet with toast...

 Getting on the bus to our "sleeping" seats, we headed to the next small but incredibly interesting town - Pushkar...