Jaisalmer breakfast

We're in the far west corner of Rajasthan not far from the Pakistani border in a fort town called Jaisalmer. The 12th century fort rises out of the desert plains like a massive Bondi Beach sand castle, replete with 99 crumbling sand bucket bastions. A quarter of the towns people live within the fort walls and the ten year old in me wanted to stay within them as well, so we paid through the teeth to stay in a 500 year old haveli with a room that was more a film set from Arabian Nights. It looked over the ancient Jain temple next door and out on to where desert plains meet the sky.

We thought we'd be sweltering, but it's winter here and outside high noon it gets cold. Real cold. We've invested in blankets, thermal underwear, gloves and cultivated a rum and hot chocolate addiction just to keep warm. From 11am to 3pm Cheryl and I can be found on the rooftop of our haveli reading books and soaking up rays for the cold night ahead as if we're solar cells.

Yesterday we decided we'd brave the elements and book in to a camel safari through the desert just south of here in Khuri for a few days. We met our guide out the front of the fort. Dressed shoulder to toe in white with a multicoloured turban and turned up shoes, he would have looked like a postcard Rajput if it wasn't for the bad brown leather jacket he'd donned to keep the morning chill at bay that matched the colour of his betel stained teeth. We discussed our trip over a cup of chai, where he also told us his life story. Chatting with Indian alpha males is like chatting with coke heads. Some are interesting, some are boring and (apart from some cursory questions about yourself to not come across as rude) they will largely talk about themselves and any contributions by yourself will be ignored unless they add colour to the wonderful picture they are painting. Baba Singh, was a character though, "not rich and not poor" by his own definition, he'd led a good life and had the hearty laugh to prove it. He said he'd pick us up in his jeep after he'd been to the doctor. He's been coming to the doctor here in Jaisalmer every day for a week after bull rammed him in the desert and gave him a nasty puncture wound to the stomach. We shook hands and agreed to meet in the morning - after three months here we've become complacent with the ridiculous.

We then headed back up in to the fort to track down the Vyas Meal Service - a ma and pa operation that apparently do great breakfasts of Paratha (a roti like flat bread) with apple curd and honey. After eventually stumbling across it in the maze of narrow alleys, we walked up stairs to find a bent over old woman and her daughter sweeping up what can only be described as a living room. It was as dark as night and contained a small gas stove, a Pepsi fridge and a table with four chairs. After some enquiries in basic English, we confirmed that we had actually come to the right place. She bade us to sit down and hobbled over with a menu and a pad and pen and asked us to write our order down. We gave her the pad with our written down order and with a beaming toothless smile asked if we could read it to her as she didn't read English (after three months here we've become complacent with things not making sense). Cheryl patiently read the order to her and we sat back in the candle lit darkness to await our meal. We felt guilty having this poor old woman wait on us so we insisted we'd carry everything over to the table, leaving her on the floor with the gas stove making chai and curd.

When she finally called to us in Hindi that it was ready, we sat down to our most basic yet best breakfast yet. In the cold of the desert morning in an ancient fort, we warmed ourselves up with her spicy chai and piping hot paratha with which we scooped up the rich goodness of apple curd with honey - eating every morsel. We thanked her profusely and left her a massive tip that she would not have known about as we had to add up our own bill (another example of the incredible trust and hospitality we've encountered across India). Warmed to the bone, we flung our rugs back on and headed out to the wine shop to stock up on rum for tomorrow's camel safari. Maybe its the Australian in me, but even after six years in Europe I'm still a big girl's blouse when it comes to the cold.