Jaisalmer - Lost in the Sands of Modern Times

JAISALMER - LOST IN THE SANDS OF MODERN TIMES.

We should have known. After many buses loaded with smiling Indians and
Indian music blasting from overworked sound systems, our bus that
morning was music-less and full of scowling westerners starchily riding
out to do the desert.

That in itself was no real problem even if the disabusement of a nice
idea was never comfortable. For like everyone else, we had read the
eulogies in the guide books and we too had opted hopefully for the
desert experience if not the crowd effect.

But lesson one of freelance travel remains that if the idea comes from
a guide book, then the rot has probably set in. The fact is that
tourism discovered Jaisalmer, Rajasthan's desert gem, decades ago. No
visit to Rajasthan is now complete without it to the point where guide
book followers are more or less its life blood.

When the bus arrived at the Tourist Bungalow whence those not staying
there would depart for other accommodation in the town, it was beseiged
by a crowd of rickshaw drivers far more ferociously competitive and
bitchy than any hitherto. They stayed firmly outside the bungalow gate
under threat from a policeman with a large stick but the harvesting of
westerners' spending power was clearly the main sunrise industry.

That Jaisalmer is impressive cannot be denied and no amount of blank
faced visitors will change that. Its massive sandstone fort on the
small hill retains the presence of its days as a defendable and thus
successful staging post on the camel routes to central Asia. The fort
which is still home to several thousand people, accommodates several
hundred tourists at any one time in the guesthouses and hotels within
its walls. They emerge from their en-suite rooms in the morning to sit
on the battlements below which the city's residents must defecate on
open ground for want of sanitation. Perhaps income from tourism will at
least fix that in time. Both can nevertheless watch the sun strike the
fort's sandstone with the hue which spawned the name, the "Golden City"
before any director of tourism could think it up.

Jaisalmer, the town, long ago burst out of its fortifications and the
newer parts are spread around the fort, a mixture of the fine "havelis"
of past merchant classes and the mud and concrete block houses and
non-degradable plastic refuse of 20th century transitional
necessity.

But modern-day Jaisalmer still has to do time because its tourism sits
uneasily with its heritage and will probably do so for a long while
yet. Part of the problem is that, with a resident population of 25,000,
it isn't big. Thus, at any one time, particularly in the high season
winter months, visitors make up a significant percentage of those
present. Unlike Kathmandu or Marrakech which, in the 1960s were able,
through their sheer bulk, to absorb a massive influx of travellers and
package tourists without drastic loss of tone, Jaisalmer is at once a
major destination and a small desert outpost on a dead end road.

Everyone who goes there is going nowhere else because to the west lie
only a few villages and the restricted military area against the border
with Pakistan. Everyone thus stays for a few days with only a small
area on which to spend their energy, something which was clearly beyond
some of the younger ones whose boorish behaviour in restaurants was
reminiscent of young England abroad in mass market Spain.

There are the camel safaris, of course, an integral part of the
currency gathering effort and thus very easy to arrange. Just about
everyone locally has a safari contact and mentions it at the first
opportunity and at every opportunity thereafter. But camel riding is
perhaps something to which most western frames are not that atuned.
Certainly the sight of a westerner with cheesey grin setting out for
two or three days by lurching down Main Street perched on a camel,
patently feeling, and certainly looking, ridiculous, somehow epitomises
the oil and water relationship of Jaisalmer with its visitors.

The form for the safari is generally to head out west from the town
towards Sam, 40km away with its "Sahara-like" sand dunes and
"Thumbs-up" cola stands. But reviews vary from euphoria at great open
spaces and nights under the stars to agonising hours in the saddle and
encounters with dung beetles big enough to turn you in your sleeping
bag, all mostly within sight of other parties and the tar road which
goes that far.

Safari business was nevertheless brisk when we were there and camel
drivers were making out pretty well. The local paper carried a report
of one who, having had several colds in quick succession, was certain
he had Aids from sleeping with too many western women customers. He had
decided that it was time to get married.

Deterred by the herd, if not by the risk of infection, we opted
instead to hire a jeep for a day trip around the hinterland though it
was dampened by the first rain for eight months. But even then, we
remained fodder. Bumping our way into a scattered settlement in the
stoney scrub where mud brick buildings stood in isolated twos and
threes with no apparent life save an occasional camel and a dog or two,
we were invited by the driver to get out and take photographs. Feeling
like flies on a ceiling, we declined, ostensibly at first because the
light wasn't good enough but in fact because we deplored such invasion
of privacy. If there was something we could buy, we said, like
handicrafts of some sort, we would feel better but to simply front up
and point cameras at people's homes was too rude. He insisted otherwise
but we were the customers.

So we lurched on for an hour, coming then to another village where, he
said, we could indeed buy something. Here they made embroidery for the
tourist market in Jaisalmer.

A man took us into a small oblong building with racks and piles of
folded items - bedspreads, blankets, cushion covers, shawls - made from
a mixture of local wool and some imported from Australia, which sort of
further diminished authenticity.

But we bought a few things and, having talked to the man for a while,
felt able to take a stroll. We strolled out across the bare earth
towards a few of the scattered dwellings of mudbrick and heavy thatch,
seeing no-one for a minute or two but knowing that all had seen
us.

Shortly a man approached us, walking directly to us over a large
expanse of open ground and inviting us to his home. We went. It was a
small mudbrick dwelling with a few children smiling in anticipation. He
sent one away with a message. Inside, a woman sat at a spinning wheel.
Hopefully she hadn't known we were coming and could thus rate as
authentic. As we drank chai, three men arrived carrying musical
instruments. One was a professional, just back from a tour of
Afghanistan, he said. Afghanistan?

They played - the professional on the squeezebox, an old boy on a lute
of some sort, the host's brother on the tambourine. The music was
rhythmic and penetrating, led by the pro's quasi falsetto mouthing of
words we would never decypher.

Perhaps in another place with more understanding and expectation, we
would have enjoyed it more. But this was a sudden and a straight
commercial deal. Once upon a time, the hospitality might or might not
have been spontaneous and ingrained but now it was sponsored by the
need to hussle a buck. Westerners equalled money and the thing on sale
in this particular household was entertainment.

After a couple of songs, the pro held out his hand. We had only rupees
and only in hundred notes. We fished one out. He said it that it
wouldn't go far among the household; the man who had pulled us nodded
confirmation. We had to go with the second hundred, consoling ourselves
with the thought that a few quid would have hardly bought two tickets
into an ethnic concert in London and yet would do more, much more where
we were.

Such a sudden upping of the ante seemed to take them pleasantly aback
for they let out a muted cheer which gave us a comfortable departure
cue and armed us against the final touch - the man who had pulled us in
the first place then insisting as he followed us out that he was not
actually part of the family and would not get a cut. Well, he would
have to hussle with them, we said. We knew the ropes. Oh yes.

Back in town three hours earlier than expected, we sat in a restaurant
listening to some Germans heaping abuse on a boy waiter, watched
English spread themselves into a disproporionate amount of the floor
space, heard the life-story of two sets of Americans on the other side
of the room and we planned our departure.