Dec. 22 : Jaisalmer - on the mend

Thursday, December 22 :: Jaisalmer, India :: 0km today / 747km total

My dreams were pretty tortured last night, mirroring my stomach - all about chaos and the busyness of Indian roads. I woke up feeling weak, starving, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. In the past 9 days I've lost quite a bit of weight, with the big bike miles early on, and the sickness now. After posting my previous blog I went back to sleep, and by 1pm was feeling... 75%. I decided to be brave and struck out for Jaisalmer Fort, looming above my guesthouse. Moving slowly, it was good to be out and about.

Cows are everywhere in India, but it seems even moreso here in Jaisalmer. Now, I like cows just as much as the next (Western farm-grown) person, but it's starting to get a bit much. In Canada cows are fed on... you guessed it... grass and greenery. In India cows scavenge whatever they can find; I've seen them eating cardboard, random garbage, all sorts of nasty stuff. The difference in "what goes in" is apparent in "what comes out", as cowpoo here definitely has a nasty, rancid smell. Imagine a city full of it. Welcome to Jaisalmer, India.

The fort was a bit of a letdown, certainly compared to Jodhpur's... all touts/vendors and little fort. From the outside it looks fantastic, but the inside is a chaotic sprawl of vendors with little access to the ramparts. No, I don't want a shirt [toilet paper] [necklace] [silkscarf] [internet] [bus ticket] etc etc. There was an Italian eatery inside that had good reviews, and I thought a little pasta would do me good, so in I went. Boy, was I wrong. Within 15 minutes of eating I was hastily beating a retreat to my guesthouse... and got there just in time to re-live the meal I just had. I guess it'll be more tangerines for a while... I might eat a pineapple as well.

If there's anything positive about where I am its that I have a fantastic, large room that even most of you would probably stay in. A very clean bathroom with a flush toilet; tempermental hot water; big, comfy, clean bed with sheets, and a strange little door that I have to bend down to go through, to enter the room. All for $4 CDN/night!

Oh ya, and I'm not giving up on the bike. When your insides are being ripped out of you in both directions the last thing you want to think about is getting on a bicycle, but I love this mode of travel too much to give it up. I'll take a 12-hour sleeper bus straight to Udaipur in a day or two ($10 CDN), recover further there, and hopefully be ready to ride in 3-4 days. I have a lot of solid-food eating to do before my legs will be up for the task. The "plan" is to ride South out of Udaipur, towards Ahmedabad and Mumbai (Bombay). Booyah!