Jaisalmer – Judy and Valerie On the Road

Jaisalmer yoga

We discovered there was a local yoga class held just near our hotel in the stadium at 7am so we decided to go.

We found our way there but couldn’t find any yoga. We’d been told it was behind the pavilion on a green sheet. Valerie asked some men passing by and they were going too. What a friendly group of people.

It turned out that on that day the yoga was being held on the raised platform in the middle of the stadium! They were all very welcoming and one of the men took to translating into English as we went along. There were about 15 people, many of our sort of age. Pretty different to yoga in England where the main emphasis is often on the physical. The first part was like any set of warm up exercises and then the majority of the exercises were different pranayamas which we did for far longer. Kapalbhathi was practised for at least 5 minutes – 300 breathes (1 per second), and alternate nostril breathing similar. We also did Bhramari pranayama (humming bee) and the Lion – which everyone enjoyed and the ladies found us very funny. Then we finished with laughing yoga which I’d never done before and which was absolutely brilliant. It was also a very chatty group, rather like one we went to in Spain

We enjoyed the class so much that we decided to go again the next day and leave for Jodhpur slightly later.

So the next day we were there again, and it was on the platform again, but this time all the men were dressed in white track suits with orange turbans, and there were twice as many people. Then later, a group of young men who were running round the stadium training for the army also joined the class so there were about 50 or more on the green mat on the stage.

Then another yogi came up to the front and we did more and more laughing yoga. Everyone was laughing laughing and waving their hands in the air.

I’m going to find laughing yoga in London it’s fantastic.

Jaisalmer Prabhu handicraft

Wandering through the streets inside the fort we were stopped by Bobby, who had a handicraft shop where she sells products produced by rural women, and who turned out to be an ardent feminist. She was very vociferous about wanting to empower women and for women not to have to be confined to their traditional roles. We asked her what her husband thought about this and she said he was unhappy about it to start with but now was ok. She has two daughters and is bringing them up to be like her, but had received a lot of criticism from her family. She’s studying for a BA at the university.

Jaisalmer Camel Safari

Our two camels were called Bob Marley and Fidel Castro! When camels sit down they’re extremely neat, tucking their back legs underneath them as if they’re kneeling. When they get up and lie down you have to hold on and lean back as far as you can otherwise you’d topple over.

Their movements on the sand felt surprisingly undulating and we could understand why camels are called the ‘ships of the desert’. Even though there were a lot of other people also up on the dunes it was still possible to get a sense of the beauty of the desert. It’s made me want to see Lawrence of Arabia again

Jaisalmer Camel Tattoo

When we were in Bikaner our guide told us that camels are very good dancers. We were fairly astonished and when at the Desert Festival I said this to our guide he said that this happened in the ‘Camel Tattoo’, so of course we had to go.

Do you remember the Royal Tournament with the horses galloping across the arena just missing each other? Well picture that in a huge outdoor arena in the desert with the blazing sun, with a brass band, on camels. The Border Security Force and their camels all dressed in their finery. They were fantastic!

Jaisalmer Desert Festival

The annual Desert Festival started with a wonderfully vibrant parade through the town. Everyone decked out in beautiful colours, men with amazing moustaches and orange turbans, girls with exquisitely embroidered dresses, dancers in red flowing gowns and camels looking extremely fine

Block printing workshop in Barmer

On the way to Jaisalmer we stopped at Barmer to attend a block printing workshop run for us by a small textile printing company called Panihari.

This was very exciting as one of the workers first showed us the process and then we were each given a metre of cloth and helped to create our own prints. We each just used two different blocks one for the edge and one for the centre, but they would use several wooden blocks to create a detailed pattern with several colours (see the Anokhi post). The solution we pressed onto the material was made of lime and gum. This will act as a ‘resist’ so that when the material is dyed the patterned sections will remain white.

They will dye our prints with indigo and send them on to us in Jaisalmer … watch this space.