Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

Jaisalmer
A giant sandcastle with a town attached, an emblem of honour in a land of rough and tumble. Founded in 1156, Jaisalmer's strategic position on the camel-train routes between India and Central Asia brought it great wealth. The merchants and townspeople built magnificient houses and mansions, ezquisitely carved from wood and sandstone.
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Jaisalmer was supposedly one of the main highlights of our trip. However, I felt that it was good, not great when compared to great places like Darjeeling, Varanasi & Bodhgaya. Nevertheless, its culture and architecture style is quite different from the rest of India.
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Jain Temple (12th-16th century)
The interior of the Jain Temple is quite amazing, the worksmanship of carving is something that I haven't seen before. Amazing. Well, Hanyang was the designated photographer to take all the interior pictures, as each camera taken in would be charged. Will upload when i got the pics from him.
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Maharaja's Palace
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Street Vendors
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Colourful Clothings
Indians can wear really colourful clothes and it looks good on them
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The Jaisalmer Fort
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Patwa-ki-Haveli
Havelis were built by rich merchants, and its carvings are really exquisite.
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Window
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Beautiful
Look at the details of its carvings
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Puppets
The focus of this picture is actually the boy.
Why isn't he in school?
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Camel Safari (3D2N)
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We had so much expectation for the camel safari, but it turns out to be okay only. Well, 3days2nites were too long, as we saw the same thing since day 1 - quite barren land without much variation.
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However, the great thing was to see sunset across the horizon, sleep under the sky that was full of stars and ponder if there are other beings in those stars, and being woken up by sunrise. Basically, to enjoy the marvelous nature.
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Shadow
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X'mas Nite
It was quite nice to sit around the bon-fire in the cold desert nite, and drink a warm glass of chai-tea prepared by our guides. Singing rajasthani song - "Pi-li-ah-pai". haha...
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Sunset over the horizon
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Day 2
(Woke up feeling cold, glad that the sun is up as it would warm up everything around us, still traveling in the desert, Camel drinking water)
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There were times when we would like to tell the villages that our name is not RUPEE.
Normally, when we reached a village, the children would approach us and say "Hello Rupee", stretching their hands forward.
I was not in the mood to talk or give money to any of the children.
they lost the innocence of a kid.
who to blame?
tourists or parents?
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18 years old Salim (one of our guides)
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Sand Dunes - our resting place for 2nd night.
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Princess Yun
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Abandoned
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Sunset over Sand Dunes
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