Chalo Chalen India: Journey to Jaisalmer

We decided to load up the jeep and head to the family farm and then to the "yellow city" of Jaisalmer for a few days. The journey there was an adventure filled with laughs, surprising road side scenes, and many memories. It seemed at first like we would never make it out of Jodhpur as we winded through many streets. Abhijeet's mom joked that if we got lost, we would just pull over to the road side, have a picnic with all of the food that she packed, and enjoy the day. We finally hit the main road and were able to cruise along freely. The cruising, however, was often disturbed by slow vehicles, cows who seemed to take the middle of the road as their personal home, water flooding across, or people walking along the road headed toward a temple. We stopped a few times for roadside bathroom breaks which Abhijeet's mom liked to call "refresh" stops. Just outside of Jodhpur I got a view of the red, hard stone that is mined and collected for much of the buildings of Jodhpur. There was no heavy machinery and at one point, I even saw men splitting a rock by placing a peg in one spot and using manpower to hammer through it. As we got closer to Jaisalmer, the terrain turned into more of a desert and contained sandy dunes covered by some dry, green shrubbery. We passed through several small villages along the way where people were gathered at markets or relaxing and chatting over a cup of chai. The scenery throughout the trip was remarkable. I have never traveled so extensively through a desert like area and was amazed that there was as much green in the sandy soil as there was. Rainy season had just occurred so that explains much of the green.

Two ladies in traditional Rajasthani dress riding along on a moped. This is a relatively new phenomena to see women on mopeds, motorcycles, etc but has become quite a frequent site now.