Jaisalmer, India

Lying no more than 150 km from the Pakistani border and no less than 800 km from the nearest metropolitan centre is Jaisalmer. A city built solely of sand, there's no mistaking your whereabouts for anything other than what it is: the desert. It's unlike anything I could've imagined. The golden, sand-carved buildings lie against a perpetually blue sky, and to my surprise, beside plenty of greenery. The havelis (old mansions) are ornately hand carved from sandstone and sit atop the town's amazing focal point: a giant 700 year-old fort made of - you guessed it - sand. 2000 people live inside this thing, alongside guest-houses, restaurants and shops. It's like playing in the world's biggest sand castle. Our purpose in making the day and a half long trip out there was camel trekking. To confirm, yep, camels fart. They fart a lot. And it smells horrible. We spent about 30 hours with our camels in the Thar Desert. It was exactly what you'd expect: hot, barrain and beautiful. We didn't move at all during the oppressive mid-day heat, and instead relaxed in the shade. It was peaceful, silent and felt like a million blissful miles away from the city. It was a much needed and appreciated break from the hassle and noise that define India. We were joined on our shady break by some local women who were utterly fascinated by our fair skin. They couldn't speak English, so instead settled in for an afternoon of starting at and petting the foreign girls. They were incredibly sweet and gave us parting gifts of bangles and bindis. We hopped back on our camels to trek out to our digs for the night: the top of a sand dune. We arrived a few hours and 2 very sore asses later. We played in the sand for a bit, attempted in making some chapati (Indian bread) over our makeshift stove, and finally curled up in the sand dunes under the stars. It's definitely the most scenic place I've ever slept, under a full moon so bright I could read by it. We woke up the next morning to an amazing sunrise and got back on our farting camels. Our bruised asses made these a somewhat unpleasant couple of hours, but well worth it. We arrived back in Jaisalmer and boarded our train for Mumbai via Jodhpur a few hours later. A very interesting trip it was, involving force-feeding, unwelcome picture taking, and surrogate fathers. Those stories will have to wait for later, when I'm not a sweaty pile of goo being broiled by the Mumbai heat.