The Adventures of Smell and Snott: The sand-coloured city of Jaisalmer where photo opportunities were too much for us to resist

Another day, another fort. But this time, we were actually staying inside the fort! Our rooms in Jaisalmer were cheap, spacious, had hot water (sorry if this is boring for you, but these are very exciting facts for us!) and best of all, had little balconies looking out from the turret we were staying in, with views of the sandstone fort and the desert-coloured city below. It was hard to tell where the town ended and the desert began – although the view was contrasted somewhat by the line and lines of wind-power turbines on the horizon. This is a photo of Scott in our window - see if you can spot him!

The highlight of Jaisalmer was a camel safari (more in the next entry), but our few days there were also interesting because it happened to be the Hindu festival of Holi. If you are uninitiated, this festival celebrates peace and friendship, and no one is allowed to fight or argue for its duration. These feelings are demonstrated by everyone throwing or squirting coloured dye over each other so that all different colours blend together and everyone looks the same. We couldn’t escape, so we wore old clothes and had lots of fun! Some people in the fort invited us to play Holi, so we had some colour on us in the morning, then we got absolutely covered by the kids in the village where our camel ride began – luckily Tomas, a German friend who went on the camel ride with us, managed to grab a squirt bottle from them and get some revenge! Scott still has red dye in his hair 5 days later, and Shelley has a pink bra now!