March 28, 2008 – Jaisalmer, India

Arrived at 6 this morning in Jaisalmer (fort town in the middle of camel filled deserts) to search for the promised hotel driver with the sign reading ‘Madey’ (Evy didn’t figure he’d heard the name correctly on the phone last night) or at least a basic hotel sign reading ‘Hotel Golden City & Swimming Pool’, ‘Swimming Pool’ being the operative words that had led us to making a reservation at this place
{Note: It’s 39ºC and counting. Last town we were in, Jodhpur, it was minimum $15.00 to swim in the pool, more commonly going up to $30. In India that kind of money gets you food & accommodation for at least a couple of days, if not longer. To get access to a nice pool included in our rightly accommodation fee of approximately $4.50 each a night here is a pretty sweet deal!}
At the train station, as usual, we were preyed upon immediately from our disembarkation point onward, and just as resolutely we turned these unrelenting rickshaw drivers away. ‘We’re being picked up, we have a place to stay’ we repeated time & again. No sign of our pick-up though… hmmm… suddenly a guy in a red shirt appears.
‘Golden City?’ he says.
We smile at him, is this our driver?
‘You called last night, right?’ he mimes holding a phone as we agree happily.
‘Follow me’.
We follow him to a jeep and he starts saying something about how there’s no longer any room at the hotel, which is why he didn’t come with his sign. We may have to pay more. ‘Excuse me?’ we turn to look at him, having already loaded our stuff and clambered into the jeep.
‘We had a big group of German tourists come in at 3am yesterday’ he says. ‘They filled up the hotel, I’ll take you to a hotel next door, it’ll be Rs 200, 250, not too bad’.
‘No’ says Evy, more up on the ball than I am, even though I’d been the one to actually wake up for our train stop. ‘Take us to the hotel anyway’.
‘What, so you can sleep on the rooftop?’ says the guy. ‘There’s no room, except on the roof. It’s my hotel, I apologize very much but there’s no room.’
Something seems odd about all this though, so we stand fast.
‘No, we wish to be taken to the hotel anyway.’
He doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with us. I look out as suddenly two new guys arrive about 20 feet away from us, carrying signs. ‘Golden City Hotel’. If that’s legit, this guy’s a fraud. It seems he is. Scamming red-shirt dude disappears literally in the blink of an eye as we hurriedly remove our stuff from the jeep and make our way over to the new one. Here they don’t seem in the least surprised by our treatment at the hands of their fellows. ‘Sorry we’re late’ says one. I wonder if they would engage in the same or similar practices if one of the other hotel drivers had been late. These guys seem nice enough though, I hope not.
A short drive later we arrive in front of the hotel, no word about German tourists or over-fullness. The back door of the jeep is opened, and, being closest, I attempt to get out first, backpack with computer in hand. I trip over the little metal step to get out. Bag lands with a whack, computer side down, and as for me, it’s a full faceplant into the ground (à la ass-girl 48hr film shoot for those who recall). Welcome to Jaisalmer…
Then we realize that we do indeed have a room, and we do indeed have access to the ‘ice cold’ swimming pool. I may be bleeding and awake at an ungodly hour, but the world is still a good place!