Some Light Shopping and My Stomach Challenge

12/7
We woke up this morning at 5:45am to see the sunrise. It was so cold and dark out; I’m so glad I downloaded a flashlight application on my iphone! We climbed to the top of a sand dune (Emily fell going up it, the desert is the best place to be if you like seeing people fall!) and waited for the sun to come up. I played some John Mayer music on my phone for everyone, which set a lovely mood. Eventually the sun came up and the colors were beautiful. Funniest part of the morning; as soon as we woke up someone came over asking if we wanted a camel ride (it never ends!)
Once we left the tents we set off to the Jaiselmer Fort, aka the Golden Fort. Apparently a quarter of the cities population lives in this fort, which contains a great bazaar and palaces and temples. I just wanted to have a light day since I was tired from waking up from the sunrise, so me and a few other people just went shopping where I bought a couple of souvenirs. The bazaar had a lot of leather goods here, but it’s questionable what type of leather it all actually is. They don’t kill cows here, so the people in the shop will tell you it’s camel leather. When we went into one store though a merchant told us that it’s really usually goat leather, which is a lot cheaper and the stores are trying to rip you off (so who really knows what any of it is). In the fort we went to an Italian restaurant where I got some pineapple pizza. Of course it wasn’t the greatest pizza in the world but I was happy to be eating pizza (stomach ache not too far behind).
After that we headed to the next hotel called the Mahader Palace, which everyone has been excited about because there’s a pool and time to relax before dinner. Because of my packing fiasco I forgot to bring a bathing suite, but it was nice to just sit by a pool for an hour and get some sun. The pool was also really gross looking, so I wasn’t missing anything at all.
For dinner we went to another rooftop restaurant. Today was the first day I thought my stomach could handle a little challenge so I got some tandoori chicken (and just in case, some scrambled eggs on the side). I was so hungry (I guess because I wasn’t eating for those few days) that I ate both plates of food! It was nice to have some meat too since I hadn’t eaten any in a while. I also enjoyed a piece of Cadbury chocolate, so the meal was a success!
I’m going to call it a night early because I’m so exhausted from waking up so early and tomorrow is another long day of traveling. Being on that bus for so long is so draining; I can’t wait until we get a little break from it!