Uncle read out to us from the local paper that the temperature on the previous day touched 43C! This was supposedly way high, this being the end of September. Seemed like we had some good hot ride ahead since we were heading deeper into the Thar desert. Sipped some tea, took some snaps and we headed out of Jaswanth Bhavan with good wishes from Uncle and Aunty for the journey from Bikaner to Jaisalmer ahead. This is how day 2 started.
Bruno, the German Shepherd at Jaswanth Bhavan wanted to play ‘fetch’ while we were loading up the bike to leave. He would pick up a stone, drop it at my feet and nudge till I threw the stone for him. Sweet Dog!
We decided to take a small tour of the town ourselves, before heading on the highway from Bikaner to Jaisalmer. We went around Junagarh Fort which looked deep red with the rising sun. For those of you who are familiar with the TV program Chandrakantha, the character of ‘Junagarh ka Raja’ is from here. The fort overlooks a lake which hardly had any water but we did see some boats. The dry lake is surrounded by quite a few temples, mostly Jain. Most of the heritage buildings are now converted into government offices. The buildings looked well cared for, though I am not sure if the interiors had the same story to tell. The town itself had quite a few parks on either side of the road, which was good to see in a desert city.
The Road to Jaisalmer
We rode around 50 kms on the highway and stopped at a lone shack which looked like would serve us some breakfast. The guy had probably just opened shop and was in a daze when we asked for some grub (maybe it was also because we came on a bike). We asked for some aloo parathas and waited in the shade, checking out miles and miles of brown flat lands. Finally the food arrived and I must say that it was really tasty.
A while later, a Sumo with a family stopped at the Dhabha. The womenfolk, had their faces covered with ghunghat and hardly spoke. The men were quite noisy and one of them started a conversation with Abhi. Started with the usual stuff of where we are from, where we were coming from, biking, if I was the wife (he he!), why we were riding in the sun etc etc. He then told us that we had to visit the Karni Maata Temple (The famous rat temple) since it had some unique powers. He mentioned that during the plague outbreak some years back none of the rats in the temple were affected and so it was definitely a place to visit. We were not too keen on this and decided to skip it. Much later, after we got back to Bangalore, we got to watch a documentatry on the temple and literally thanked Karni Maatha for giving us the divine thought of not visiting her! The place was surrounded by rats, of all sizes! They were everywhere, on food, water, doors, windows, floor, barricades, and I wouldnt have been able to survive that! Phew!
We bid the family goodbye, and rode on. We were covering good distances as the tarmac was fantabulous. Miles and miles of straight road, and one can just lock throttle and go on forever. But the fact is, there is nothing much to see; It was just us, the bike and the desert. And ofcourse, the Peacocks 🙂 Not sure if thats the habitat they prefer, but they were all over the place, crossing the road, sitting on the fence or just walking by, off the highway.
A little after Kolayat, we caught up with a goods laden truck, stopped right in the middle of the highway. There was a second truck which had stopped too, facing the opposite direction. And then we saw a bottle of water being passed from the second truck to the first! We burst out laughing, thinking that it wasnt the fuel but water that took priority when you are at a place with such extreme weather.
Talking about water, when we planned to travel in the desert, availabilty of water was one of our concerns. But, as we rode through Rajasthan, it was quite interesting to find that even in the hottest of the places, we did not have problems finding water. Small shops and fuel stations stored bottled water. Even the small shacks had few pots with water, ready to serve any thirsty traveller.
We stopped at Pallodi for a refuel. As expected my jacket had got quite hot, so I dashed to the shade to cool it off while Abhi got bike refueled. What we thought would be a fill-ride stop turned out to be an extended break when the guy at the bunk got a charpoi and put it in the shade for us. We loaded ourselves with water and got going.
As we headed towards Ramdevra, we noticed abandoned footware of all kinds, loads of them on either side of the road. It looked like an after riot scene except for a peculiar arrangement of stones arranged in ‘2-1, 3-2-1, 4-3-2-1’ -type structures which were interspersed between them. Made a mental note to check about it later once we get to Jaisalmer.
It was post midday and Abhi was keen on visiting the Nuclear testing site at Pokharan. I was now burning inside my riding jacket as we got to the town. We rode up and down the town, looking for some sign boards about the way to the testing site. We did see an army station at the periphery and a few chatris further ahead. The chattris, usually tombs of important people, looked quite interesting and we headed towards it. We got to a dead end with a railway track. The rest of the way to the tombs had to be made by foot. There were some of these urchins inside these Chattris hooting when they saw us and we decided not to head there. I did not have the energy either. I found some shade nearby and made use of the break to hydrate while Abhi took some pictures.
Jaisalmer is another 70 kms from Pokharan and we hoped to reach there by lunch. The sun was now hitting us in full strength and sapping us of all the energy as we rode. We had to stop frequently to hydrate.
One of the hydrating stops was at a thatched hut in the middle of nowhere. We stopped thinking that it was a shop which sold water but it actually turned out to be a house with a family of six. What happened next turned out to be a very humbling experience. First off, the moment we stopped, the man in the family invited us inside and offered one of the charpois to rest. He then poured us both a glass of water from one of the mud pots, is when I noticed that there were 4 of these water pots. By now, some more locals walked in and they were served water from the pots too. We had not seen any kind of water source as we rode to this place, and so, out of curiosity, we enquired where he managed to get water from. He very matter-of-fact-ly said that the Indira Gandhi Canal was close by and it was no problem at all for them to get water from there. I have to mention that this family even had a bird bath which had attracted a flock of sparrows and bulbuls. We being city dwellers, ‘close by’ meant a couple of 100 mtrs. When we asked him if we could go see the canal is when we were told that the canal is about 8 kms from the hut, and he and his wife would go there every morning to fetch water!!! And they had absolutely no hesitation in serving thirsty travellers! We were touched!
We were on our way again, with 45 kms to go to Jaisalmer. The heat got worse, or rather, it hit me. My eyes burnt and started watering, a while later I couldn’t feel my feet or my hands and had no strength to move them. Abhi rode on looking for some shade for us stop, although we couldn’t see anything but the desert with thorny bushes here and there. My discomfort became worse and we had to stop wherever we were. I stumbled into the desert and collapsed breathless next to a thorny tree (you can imagine the shade under that!). Abhi spread my riding jacket on the thorny tree to make some shade while I put my back support around my head to shield it from the sun. While surprisingly Abhi seemed to be quite comfortable in the intense heat, it took me about half an hour to get back to normal.
Bikaner to Jaisalmer – Done!
We finally reached Jaisalmer by about 3 PM and checked in to Hotel Shahi Palace. Dev, the owner of the place, had our room ready. He was shocked that we were riding in that heat. What he told us shocked us too. The temperature on that day was the highest in 109 yrs for the month of September. While it normally starts cooling off, this time it had touched around 43C!
After a quick cold shower and lunch, we were off to desert to see the sunset and spend the night. We were given a choice of two places – Khuri, where there was no tents or Rajasthani folk dancers, and Sam, which had both. We chose Khuri, and we were glad we did. A 30 km jeep ride later, we got to the edge of the desert where the road ended and had a herd of Dromedary Camels. Here, we were introduced to a Camel herder who then helped us climb on to two of his Camels – Abhi with Micheal Jackson and Me with Mr.India – Yeah, those were the names of the camels!
I felt quite out of balance and wobbly as the camel stood up to its full height. These two would take us deeper into the desert to see the sunset. The sun had begun its descent and the camel herd made our rides keep a pretty good pace so as to reach the perfect spot to view the sunset. As first timers on Camel back, I thought I was in for a nasty fall any moment! But eventually, as we got accustomed to it, and it was so much fun!
By now we were quite far into the desert and what a sight awaited us! The sunset was nothing like we had ever seen! The Ramzan cresent looked ever so spectacular in that backdrop. And such tranquility. We were mesmerized!
As the sun disappeared, our hosts for the night, the dung beetles kept us company. These relentless little creatures just don’t stop rolling dung. They feed on the dung, but I wonder why they need to roll so many!! They flew low and kept landing on us. What we realized was that they were all heading for the camels, and we were right in their path. We got out of their way. While the Dung Beetles kept us occupied, the night was on us and so was the Milky Way! One could look at it for hours and still not have enough of it. The gods were kind and sent a couple of shooting stars as well. The ride in the heat felt worth it.
A little distance away, the Camel herds had started a bonfire. Our simple dinner of Rotis and Veggies were cooked for us by them, which we washed down with some beer 🙂 The cool desert wind, the stars of the Milky way, the crescent moon and the bonfire – all made it brilliant experience.
