March 6

Yesterday we got up and around and decided not to have breakfast since we weren't hungry yet. When we did get out about the fort, we stopped at The Big Tree Restaurant for lunch. We ordered, sharing an Egg Biriyani; a Tomato, Cheese, Garlic Sandwich/Panini; and to drink an Orange shake and water. We just sat and enjoyed the views and sunshine a bit as it had been cool this morning.

Then we hired a tuk-tuk went to Bada Bagh Centographs. Arrived we paid our driver, bought tickets and wandered into the site. The setting is of the centographs surrounded by desert, except along one side. There is a depressed, very green field with a skirting of mango trees. A damn was built here to add a water element for beautification of the site, and water for the area. But there's not water here currently. There were quite a few of these monuments to the memory of many Jaisalmer Royalty. But only a very few had descriptions of who they memorialized. All the placards (either sandstone or marble) had the same figures carved on them, with the main variation being how many carved women figures were with the male figure mounted on a horse. Were the women representations of the royals wives?? I don't know and we were not interested in a guide to just get the answer to this and the few other questions we had.

After we explored a bit and took in the views of the surrounding area, we set off trekking back to town along to the main road. It was five miles back into Jaisalmer. We had a couple of offers for rides – one being a tractor pulling a water tank! Jeff wished we would have accepted that one. 😆 🤣

Anyway, we arrived back to the fort and our place by five-ish. Cooled and showered. Went to our hostel cafe for supper. We had two dishes. First was Aloo Gobi, which is a curry of potatoes and cauliflower. Added a side of x2 roti. Second was Dal Bati Churma, which is a thali including: a bowl of dal – a lentil, chickpea type- soup; x2 bati – two very dense wheat buns with ghee; churma, which is coarse ground wheat with sugar, ghee, cashews, and raisins; chatni, which is a spicy curry of garlic, chilies and oil; bowl of rice; and lastly, a papadom, a crisp fried tortilla-type bread. Wow! So glad we had this meal!!! We had drinks: water, Jeff – beer,me a sweet Lassi, and an Oreo shake. The lassi and shake help to cool the spice fire going on in our mouths (Indians use the lassi this way all the time. One question answered – about how they can eat such hot food).

Finished and back to our room. Watched YouTube videos and sipped last of our rum. Great day with an awesome supper. Tomorrow will be moving on.

Up & about by 800. It was too cold to go outside (54 degrees). We did our resistance bands, packed, and readied. At ten, as we went out to check out, it was lightly raining! Surprise, surprise, surprise!! We went back up to the cafe for breakfast. I had a lemon, honey, ginger tea and lemon honey pancake. Jeff -hot chocolate and masala omelet w/ toast. The brief rain had stopped. It was 10:30. So we had the hostel hold our luggage and went out for one last thing here in Jaisalmer. We walked the short distance to the Jaisalmer Fort/Palace. Our entry tickets included an audio guide tour. There was no option for a non audio guide tour. That is a first. We entered a square and commenced the tour. There is a carved placard here commemorating the '850th year of Jaisalmer' from 2005!! Lots of history here! The first real room of the Palace was the throne room. Next was a room of armaments. Then another square, was supposed to lead to another area, but a number of rooms were closed for restoration. ☹️ Redirected to next grouping of rooms with one having a display of carved statues. Now we were directed to the Maharaja's bedroom. It was tiled in imported Dutch blue, hand-painted tiles for the walls. There was bed that was very short length, considering the king was over 6.5ft tall! Now we were sent up on the rooftop. It is the tallest in the fort. It was here you can see more the outline of the whole fortified walled area of the fort. The audio guide said there are 99 bastions that encompass the fort. Also the guide said the fort was only captured 3 times in its history. Now we were directed to the Queen's Palace part, or the ladies chambers. Many of the rooms were closed here for restoration as well. Last thing of note… a small scale model of the fort. (Later our Hostel guy showed me it was shaped like the country of India.) We came to the end of the audio guide and the tour.

It was around twelve, so we went back at the hostel to get luggage. But ran into trouble with our lock keeping our luggage secure and together!! Finally at 1215, the hostel guy acquired cutters, and cut our luggage lock to get it off! At 1230, we were on our way to airport by tuk-tuk. 1300 arrived and waited to check in. Then, through security. While waiting, we ate a light lunch cranberries, raisins, dates, masala cashews, and pumpkin seeds. The airport only has two gates, and only three scheduled flights from here today. We are on the first plane, a 1455, departure time. This did not happen, of course…remember, “India is great, but always late!” The plane arrived, unloaded, and we all loaded within 30 minutes! Impressive! Because of this we took off only 9 minutes late!! No trouble flight. Landed in Delhi at 1624 – 11 minutes late. The plane landed in Terminal 3 and we had to get to Terminal 2. This meant out of security and actually walking a bit outside to get there. Thankfully our checked bags were checked to Amritsar (our final destination). We found Terminal 2 and back through security – which was the worst security screening. Jeff had to unload practically all the electrical stuff!! 

Anyway, we had almost four hour layover in Delhi. We opted to go to their lounge. It was supposed to have been a 30 minute wait, but was actually only 10 minutes. They had a good variety of food. I got a small bits of roasted chickpea salad, cucumbers, and a bean sprout salad; rice with a cauliflower and pea curry; a roti; and small piece of marble cake and one inch cube of chocolate cake. It was all great! Jeff had a different curry (chicken) and the one I chose. We could stay 2 hours, but only stayed one hour and 45 minutes. This was good timing. When we arrived at our gate (#21, much bigger airport 🤣), they had just started boarding. We load on a bus and do tarmac entries (as we did in the airport at Jaisalmer). I don't know if this is because it is IndiGo Airlines? OR, If it is tarmac entries for all smaller aircraft? We haven't flown enough here in India to know.

So we all loaded and took off from Delhi 2 minutes early!! What is up with this!?! No trouble flight, again a short one. We landed in Amistar at 2113, 7 minutes early! Wow!! So things can run on time!😂🤣 We got to baggage claim, finally got our bags (more positively, we got our bags) and were in an Ola taxi by 2148. At 2210 arrived at Seth Residency (our hotel for next five nights) We got checked in and in bed by 2245.