Place: Jaisalmer Fort

Jaisalmer is in the middle of the desert, with not much around it. So back in the day, 400 years ago, the king and all his subjects lived in this fort. All the resources were aggregated inside it, and it was fortified to defend against the outside world.

Being in the desert, water was a scarce resource. There’s a lake to fetch water from, but sometimes 7 years went by without another bout of rain, so even that water had to be used extremely wisely.

Every bucket of water they recycled many times by filtering it through mud - first they used it to wash their food, then they reused it to wash themselves, then to wash their clothes, then to wash the floors, and finally one last time to wash the toilets. I wonder if America would ever resort to something like this if our droughts got worse.

Now that there’s a channel feeding water to Jaisalmer, water’s no longer a scarce resource and that pristine lake has now become a boating attraction and is completely polluted :(

Food: Some pasta dish

Our first non-Indian meal since we’ve been here! I don’t even remember exactly what was in it, but I sure was glad to have gotten some variety for once. Not that there’s not enough variety in Indian food itself – I’ve gained much more appreciation for all that you can eat within Indian cuisine, but I also miss the diversity of foods available to us in North America. Definitely took that for granted.