Hi Ho Silver

Following Jodhpur, we descended upon Jaisalmer - which was a huge disappointment. Our guide books created misty images of Aladdin meets Arabian Nights - with genies, huge bazaars full of lamps just waiting to be polished, dancers in multicoloured veils and eccentric, colourful people. In actuality, it was just a sandy town in the middle of the desert that is much over-rated. It is beautiful in it's own way - but nothing can beat Udaipur for us. We visited Jaisalmer Fort, but gave up the ghost after a while. Lydia and I do appreciate beauty, culture and art - but there is such thing as too much of a good thing. Imagine eating 3 Twixes a day, for two weeks - you'd be sick of it by then... Perhaps not a good metaphor to use, but you get the gist of what I mean!

The new highlight of our tour was the camel trekking - we headed to a little village about an hour's drive outside of Jaisalmer. It was run by this family - and we spent a happy couple of hours entertaining them by signing away, teaching them to play UNO and plying the little kiddies with sweets! The lady who ran the village was so taken with us she gave us both a necklace. Later we picked up our camels which had been "relaxing" in the village, and headed out into the sands. I tell you - there is nothing on earth better than standing in the middle of a desert necking back an ice-cold Pepsi. Nothing on earth. The driver pulled me down a sand dune, so I had half the Gobi desert in my shoes, and in other places it really shouldn't be. There were no facilities there for washing yourself, so spent a happy night sand-coated under a mosquito net before finally having a shower today. I will never take showers for granted ever again.

We're now in Bikaner - we're just chiling at the hotel today and de-sanding, then off out for dinner. Tomorrow we'll go sight seeing - top of the list is the rat temple about 30km out of town. Rats run free in the temple, and are worshipped - it's supposed to be good luck to spot the white rat - many people crawl around on their hands and knees all day trying to find it. Good luck to them I say! Woe betide anyone who should stand on a rat - you have to pay for a gold rat to place in the temple to atone for what you've done and have absolution. I'll be watching my feet! Should be an experience and a half!

Quite a short one today, and I bet you're all signing with relief!! I'll update as soon as we've done something remotely exciting!

Becks - thanks for the tips from your dad, we bought a HUGE jar of sweets to pass out to the children!

Sam and Andrew - the temperature was 47 the other day in Rajasthan - apparently 4 people died in the region. Lydia and I found it unbearable and beat a swift retreat to the safety of our A/C'd hotel room! Roll on Dharmsala!

Daniel - thanks for all the tips about Dharmsala/McLeods Ganj - I think Lydia is going to email you later. We'll be watching the game tonight. Go France!

Jean Louis - don't be silly, your English is great!!! :o) Good luck with the new job.

Cat - WHERE is my email?!?!

To everyone else - keep safe, we're missing you!

Caroline xx