We walked to the clock tower to get someone to fix Alicia's poor bag. A few straps had broken along with a zipper. Amazingly, within fifteen minutes both problems were fixed for only seventy five cents. Hooray! (Until we realized later in the day that the zipper must in fact be completely replaced-not hooray). We then tried a giant store of scarves but realized they weren't going to lower the price to a reasonable amount after looking through a billion scarves. We got evil eyes on the way out on account of the mess and no profit, but they shouldn't be so stubborn. They aren't going to make business with many (half smart) people at those prices. Sick of scarves, we tried the spice shop next and got some yummy chai masala and garam masala spices for what we were told by our guest house was a good price (obviously they charged us double automatically but we will never be able to buy it at the Indian price- maybe Hindu lessons and a few tanning sessions is the answer). Shopping at the clock tower was more of an experience and less of a successful shopping trip, but that's ok by us. There will be other markets.
We had wanted to send a package from Jodhpur but our guest house owner told us that there were too many Indian mafia people in the city (uhhh...) and that we should just wait until Jaislamer. Hopefully its safer there???
We went back to our room to collect our bags and pay our bill before taking a tuk-tuk (aka rickshaw) to the bus station for our 3:30 bus to Jaislamer. While loading our bags someone asked where we were staying. Somehow he guessed right away that Jack had recommended us to Hotel Deep Mahal (I'm starting to think we are the only white travelers around). He told us that it was in the fort and that we should stay at his brothers place instead (oh sure, sounds great!). We hadn't known that the recommended hotel was in the fort, but decided we shouldn't stay there after all. We had read in the book not to stay in the fort because it was falling apart because of the over crowding. In an effort to preserve it, the government has tried to encourage people to move out by offering them land etc. but everyone is stubborn and too proud (all details were explained by our current hotel guy). Also, many of the residents depend on the tourists and will live there as long as they keep getting business. So although our bed it hard as a rock, we are doing the right thing!
Upon arriving in Jaislamer we were bombarded like never before by a ton of guest house representatives (we really are the only tourists around to bother I guess), but we stood strong and headed out to find our own place. We ended up at Hotel Peacock. Clean, good food, and relatively hassle-free. No window to the outside world (which could be a blessing in disguise on account of the lovely open sewer systems running freely throughout the city), but we won't be here long and its only about $6.50 a night for the two of us.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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