Bhide Fine Art Photography: The Golden City -- Jaisalmer

The Golden Jaisalmer Fort stretches along the crest of a hill above the city. This was the view from the rooftop restaurant at our hotel.

We reached Jaisalmer late in the afternoon, unpacked a few things, and then wandered up to the rooftop restaurant to have dinner.

The entertainment at the Royale Jaisalmer Hotel. The man on the left is playing two pairs of flat, hardwood blocks, from which he draws rhythms reminiscent of Spanish castanets. The instrument in the center is a tabla, and on the right is a harmonium. Each end of the table plays different tones, so it's really two drums in one and at time seems to actually sing, the tone is so rich and deep. The harmonium is played by squeezing a bellows attached to the back while fingering the melody line on a keyboard. The harmonium tone reminds me of an organ set to replicate an oboe sound.

Street view from the rooftop restaurant at the Royale Jaisalmer.

Before we left, I looked up the web sites for all of the places we would be staying. Nearly all of them advertised "internet access" of one type or another, but it turns out that the term is rather loosely defined and broadly interpreted. For example, the "internet cafe" at the Kuchaman Haveli consisted of a single computer in the lobby. At the Jaipur Greens, we payed for 24 hours of wi-fi, only to have it quit working just as we settled down to work. And, at the Royale Jaisalmer, "internet access" meant going to the house next door where a guy in his undershirt and lungi said that sure, he had a computer where we could buy a little time. The only truly useful and fast internet access was at the Aura de Asia Hotel in Delhi, where we both began and ended our tour.

But, back to Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer was falling into ruin until the early 1970's when Indira Gandhi went there for a visit. On touring the area, she decided that the region should be developed. She had dams and reservoirs built to provide water and brought in electricity for the entire city. As a result, the sights of Jaisalmer are now available to the average tourist. So, being average tourists, we wandered around Jaisalmer for several hours.

A view across the city from Jaisalmer Fort. You can see the new windmills across the horizon. There are hundreds of these windmills helping to provide power to the area.

The three pictures directly above: a large Jain temple. The Jain temples are quite different from Hindu temples, although Jainism was originally an offshoot of Hinduism.