Desert Camp back to Jaisalmer
This area was also notable for the masses of wind turbines-certainly the most we saw during this particular trip.
Early in this day’s drive apparently a pretty rare sight when we saw white eagles (poor quality video only) on our way to the 1st stop which was Khabha Fort-dates from the 13th century and once populated by the Paliwal Bhramins. Around 80-90 families lived in the village nearby. Basically the mysterious story of the Fort & village started in 1825 when in the single night all the villagers of Kuldhara fled. Some of the possible reasons are an earthquake shook the village badly, dwindling of the water supply, and a forceful marriage of the Kshatriya king with the Brahmin girl-Salim Singh a State Minister is often mentioned in the conjecture.
The ruins of the village are somewhat secured/protected by and old man & his son. Apparently the old man spent quite a bit of time in South Australia & his face certainly lit up when we were introduced to us and heard our accents.
The residents of the village were
Vaishnavites. There are temples, a crumbling town wall, cremation grounds, houses and wells. All in good condition and we seemed to be the only non-Indian tourists at the time.
In this area there is now irrigated cropping.
Indira Gandhi Canal - Wikipedia -an incredible undertaking Also of note are the good roads-close to the Pakistan border so it is seen as prudent that roads can be used by jets for emergency landings and also need to allow troops to mobilise quickly.
As an aside, it tickled our sense of humour whenever Magan received a marketing phone call- so many calls trying to flog him a car, mobile phone & different plans, solar and internet.
Khabha Fort
Jurassic Cactus Park "Security/Gatekeeper"
. In six weeks we will be in Mumbai.
