Camels and bazares

while the internetguy in jaipur is working on my photo's and trying to upload them i find the time to tell u about my days in jaisalmer.
it is situated in the west of rajasthan, pretty close to the border w/ pakistan, which could be seen by the huge amount of military people present in and around jaisalmer. the city is situated in the great-thar-desert and was found in 1156. it is called the "golden city" because all the houses have yellow-sandish colours. the fort of the town is situated 80 mtrs high and is made of sandstone and is really pretty. the rajphut-decorations are especially beautiful on the houses in jaisalmer. the fort is endangered though, because inside the fort live a lot of people and there are many tourist-shops, which threaten the soft sandstone buildings. that is way we decided to not spend the night inside the fort but outside in a hostel.
the biggest 'event' was our camel-safari of 1 1/2 days. we were a group of 9 people (bine, me, 4 german girls, a german couple and one japanese guy) and 7 camel-guides. each one of us had his own camel (mine was called cuju). we left jaisalmer by jeep and met the caravan in the desert, which was not only sand but also some small rocks and plants. my guide naru made me a turban and helped me to mount the camel.... it is high!!and than we left. was quite different to ride a camel, but for sure exciting. at noon they made lunch and we sat in the shadow of one bush while the camels were wkling round and eating. After lunch we rode another 2 hrs before reaching a sanddune where we stopped and stayed for the night. watching the sunset in the desert from a dune and then eating while it was dark, seeing a show of dancing and singing of jipsys (dt:zigeuner) - we had to join- and than sleeping under the sky, watching the stars. i don't think i have top say that it was amazing, right?! btw, it was pretty cold during the night, but i was friends w/ my camelguide, so i got 2 blankets (dt: decken) instead of one as all the others did ;-)....... the following morning we woke up by the sunrise, had breakfast and went again on the camel. by than my legs and bum were already hurting and i had muscleache. we are just not used to riding a camel..... but it was much fun and me,bine and one of the girls were singing and yelling on th backs of the camel (hit the road jack, backebackekuchen, knallrotes gummiboot, nackidei (BINE!), ....) -> great!
after 3 hrs in jaisalmer after the return of the safari we took the night-train to jaipur which is in the east of rajasthan. it took 14 hrs. when we entered the train there was a drunk man lying on one of our beds, hugging his whiskeybottle- we were promised to have a ladies-sleeper....! Aaaarrggggghhhhh! of course nobody could really help, not even the 5 militairs that went there w/ me. luckily the 4 girls from the safari were in the compartment next to ours and there was also a man from holland. after some discussion we managed to convince the 2 indian men to switch seats w/ bine and me. poeh! the first hrs we felt as in a zoo- w/ us being the exotic animals. if we had asked only 1 rupee each we would have made a lot of money! but after one very firm announcement of bine and my relativation of it (knowing the indian tempers) everything was fine and we could even sleep. it was for sure an adventure.
now we are on our 2nd day in jaipur. the city is much bigger than the ones we saw before, as it's the capital of rajasthan. we 've walked over the local bazares and saw lots of nice things. today we'll go to the amber fort which is situated outside jaipur.
tomorrow we'll take the bus to agra, see the taj mahal- 2nd time for me, but bine wants to see it, and maybe this time i will find time to see it from the inside?!

Tata,
ANke

Ps: the car-reader of this internetguy can't read 1GB-cards so i have to put the photo's of the camels and the desert some other time. sorry!