Day 74: Nov 17th. Sand Castle

These days we always have so many errands to run. They are mostly because we love bargaining with shop keepers and also because there are things to do! Unfortunately Alicia has been having a case of the zippers. Although her case of the straps was cured yesterday, today we dropped into a tailors to have her zipper replaced. It was quite the hilarious interaction...the tailor didn't speak a word of English and of course Alicia's Hindi isn't the greatest, so business was conducted in a series of mimed actions. When she asked about the price, he showed her on his measuring tape. She bargained him down by doing the same, then he showed her what time the bag would be ready tomorrow.

Meanwhile, next door, Karla was spending quality bargaining time in a traditional textile store. He had all sorts of cool stuff and it was hard for her to make decisions (surprise!). The great thing is that we got the package sealed with linen and wax included in the price of her purchases. We even were able to stick some last minute things in the box.

We dropped the box off at the post office, but of course we didn't have enough money, so we left the package with the friendly postal worker, thinking we'd be trusting him with it in a matter of minutes anyway, and walked back toward town to find an ATM. Of course there was a line...but we made it back before the post office closed and hopefully Alicia's family will get it before Christmas!

As forts are the theme of this trip, next on our list was the fort. This one was different from the others in that there are well over five thousand people living in it. It is just amazingly beautiful to wind in between the streets. It's a shame that the fort is collapsing because of water use through occupation - it was not built to sustain plumbing at all because it's in the middle of the desert. Now, with all the waste water going through the city every day (in open sewers no less), the infrastructure of many of the buildings is completely deteriorated and beginning to collapse. Yet, walking around within the walls of the Jaislamer fort, it became very clear as to why these people aren't going to move without a fight. Everything is for the tourists. There were just so many restaurants and shops packed into such a small space it was incredible.

Soon it was snack time and we found a gorgeous yet deserted restaurant on wall of the fort looking over Jaislamer below. During all of our purchases and consuming of food, we tried as much as we could to support the businesses outside of the fort.

By the time we were done eating and shopping it was too late to go through the whole audio tour (supposedly comparable to our last one) at the fort's palace. So we slowly made our way down to our guest house instead, stopping at nearly every shop it seemed. We even tried out a fried ball of dough soaked in honey for fun (sorely missing our baklava days). We haven't been eating so many sweets lately, but we've been consuming masala chai like it's our job (it is). We both have this idea that someday we will have the perfect cup of chai and until that day, we try it every chance we get.

We had dinner at another rooftop restaurant overlooking Ghandi Chawk, the main square just inside the Old City gates at Jaislamer before making a beeline for bed.
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