Day 5: 5th November 2006
0930 hrs: I already woke up quite late and there was a problem waiting for me right at the door of the hotel…I had given the keys of the bike to a helper in the hotel to clean the bike and the over excited guy tried to start the bike using the electric ignition…Something went bad and when I came down I noticed the meter was not working…The scared guy kept on saying sorry and irritated me more than anything else…I tried changing the fuse but it didn’t work…It was so damn disgusting…But thank God, as soon as I started the bike the meter came back…Though the Trip meter went back to Zero, it was okay as I just had to add the upcoming readings to the previous one…I finally came out of the city at around 1030 hrs…
1100 hrs: By the time I had taken the road to Jaisalmer, I was feeling hungry…So I stopped at a Rajasthani dhaba to have the taste of local delicacies…I ordered for a thali and while waiting, noticed a small child checking my bike in fascination…I called the child and came to know that he was very interested in bikes…His name was Mukia and he studied in 3rd standard in a village school…He had a collection of Trump cards with pictures of several Super bikes…I was really amazed when he started talking to me about the Technical specifications of my bike…I am sure if he was in a Hi-tech city, he would be an Automobile Engineer one day!!
With my stomach full of some real good ‘desi khana’ and ‘chulhe ki roti’, I was ready to move on…Mukia stopped me and sang some rajasthani songs for me and I gave him a chocolate in return…I waved goodbye and ripped off towards Pokharan…The road ahead was just what I wanted…In fact the 5th and 6th day of the trip had the real deserted roads which I craved for…With several breaks on the way I reached Decchu and had a clean up session…I mean I washed my hands and face…After buying some more water I took a left turn towards Pokharan…The roads were awesome…I was in the desert quadrilateral of Rajasthan now and I could feel the reality of being lonely…just what I wanted!!
While on the way to Pokharan, a man waved at me from his bike and asked me to stop…He just wanted to know which bike I had because he had been noticing for quite some time that even when I was frequently stopping on the way, I still managed to overtake him after some time and I rode too fast…I just laughed and explained him the things…His name was Mr. Mohanlal Ghanchi and was really a nice man…When he came to know that I was on a Rajasthan tour, he invited me to his house in village Khudi in Barmer…According to him Barmer was definitely a place for me to visit as it was the most dry place in Rajasthan…As I was looking for ‘banjar’ places, I definitely got interested but I knew I was short on time and couldn’t visit Barmer…He still gave me his telephone number and told me to come there whenever I come to Rajasthan again…This and lots more which I would never forget…Really, people of Rajasthan were actually so nice…!
When I reached Pokharan I saw a pillared structure just by the road…It was my favourite place on the way to Jaisalmer…Its beauty could not be captured by the lens…so maybe it doesn’t look so good in the photograph, but actually sitting there with a can of juice and a smoke really gave me the piece of mind that I was in search of…There was nobody around for miles and as far as I could see, I was the only moving object present...I had stopped looking at my watch and didn’t care about the time as I was more interested in feeding my wanderlust…!!
Trip Meter: 1716.4 km
1715 hrs: I couldn’t know how time passed and I finally reached Jaisalmer…I knew of some desert camps in village Sam where I wanted to spend the night…So after enquiring a bit I came to know that I could book a tent from there itself…I did the same and the Manager of Thar Resort told me that his man would meet me in Sam and I should go there as soon as possible so that I could enjoy the sunset…But the sun was in a hurry and I had to enjoy the sunset on the way itself…Sam was around 45 km from there…I reached there at 1800 hrs and met Ramzaan, the man who would provide me with the tent…I told him to wait for some time as I could not miss walking in the desert in the evening…so I decided to have a camel ride and enjoy the full moon in the Thar Desert…!
1930 hrs: The atmosphere of the desert in a full moon night was so romantic that I was in no mood to go back to the camp…But I finally had to do so as Ramzaan said that they had arranged a cultural show and we were getting late...There was a fantastic welcome to the Desert Camp and then the cultural show began with all kinds of traditional rajasthani songs and dances…The girl dancers forcibly held my hand and I had to dance with them…Dancing with them in Rajasthani style was total fun…I then sat with the singers and sang some sufi songs…After a fantastic evening of music it was time to enjoy more of Rajasthani food…Things like ‘Daal Bhati Churma’ stuffed my stomach…I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep…I went to my tent and it was Goodnight time!
Final reading of the day: 1875.7 km
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