30th march, 07
Jaisalmer – the desert national park (sudasari)
Via Sam sand dunes
Got up bit late.
Checked out of hotel and reached to the fort of Jaisalmer. The only living fort of India. Still locals live in the fort.
inside the fort
We reached inside the fort thru the steep climb of road. Parked the bike near a temple under custody of a local shopkeeper, who was an interesting character. He helped in making our schedule for the day. As we were running short of time, he guided us to some ‘must see’ places. Took a round of the fort and came back to the bike. Took back our bags we kept with the shopkeeper. Unfortunately he went somewhere at that time, so missed opportunity to say thanks to him.
inside the fort
pretty faces of the fort
haveli near the fort
Visited a haveli and then started moving towards a village Lodhurva. It was just few kilometres away in south west of Jaisalmer. Take right from Jaisalmer-Sam (pronounced as sum) road for lodhurva just few kilometres away form Jaisalmer.
Towards Lodhurva. straight road goes to Jaisalmer and behind me is the way to SAM dunes. This road is built by BRO
Lodhurva, 15 kms from Jaisalmer is a ruined city & was the capital of Jaisalmer. The road which leads to this village is built by the prestigious Border roads organisation i.e. BRO. till now I’ve come across BRO a number of times but only in Himalayas. This was the first encounter with BRO outside Himalayas. Day was too too too hot. Here is a famous Jain temple. Just had a hasty visit inside. Filled up our water bottles. Really desert makes to understand the value of the single drop of water.
Jain temple at Lodhurva
We were on the road to Sam dunes and now we could find sand everywhere. This was the moment we were waiting for. This was the landscape for which we crossed such a huge distance. A narrow black strip of tarmac between the huge desert, but still wide enough to cruise the bike over 90 kmph. I came across barely 3-4 vehicles till Sam. Actually we reached Sam at around 1600 hours, and no sane human would like to come in the desert at this time. But we bikers are insane, and love to remain like this. :-)
As soon as we reached Sam, 2-3 people wearing traditional white ‘dhoti-kurta’ and huge ‘pagadees’ including one teenager started running to us. It took no time to understand that they wanted us to take their camel for ride. Whoever approaches us first and gets success in bargaining will get chance to take us for ride…after all we’ve come all the way from Delhi, just for the RIDE !!!!
BUT we had some other plan in mind…. Sorry!! Poor fellows .. but thanks for your kind hospitality. We don’t wanted to go back to Jaisalmer for night halt. We were looking for a place inside the desert to stay, to have the maximum feel of desert. So, Desert national park was our ultimate destination which we planned from Delhi itself.
Bye to the camel fellows, but sure they were not missing anything because of missing us as they would be getting a lot of tourist in evening, lot of money, when Sam comes into real existence. When the number of vehicles on this road will be more than of your camels and at that time you won’t have to reduce your fees or plead again and again as you did with us.
I was heading towards Sudasari (DNP). The road from Jaisalmer via Sam goes straight towards the border, so beyond Sam tourists are not allowed, but we took a left diversion for Sudasari from a village, just few kilometres away from Sam dunes. As this was not a main road, didn’t spot even a single vehicle on this narrow road. Sand, sand everywhere..no human, no villages, but yes some stray cattle. Within half an hour we were at the gate of DNP’s office at Sudasari. No body is nearby, but after some minutes an old man with huge physique approached us and bombarded too many questions. But soon we got our room, as we easily managed to tackle him.
Both of us went to nearby dunes for photography. Those dunes were more beautiful and even large than Sam dunes, but as these are little away from road, they are not at all known among tourists, whereas Sam dunes are on the road. We did offroading for few kilometres among the shrubs. Soon we reached there. We were happy find such solitude on the dunes. No body else!!!!!!
offroading
bike without stand
What a beautiful experience that was…beautiful formation of dunes, beautiful creatures of sand…. Fantastic sun set … really the time was very mesmerising.
Took dinner with those 2-3 locals who worked in DNP.
Trip metre - 1106 kms
distance covered today - 106 kms (least distance in a day during this trip)
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