camel safari

The camel safari was excellent, worth all the trouble of getting out here to the fringes of India. We lucked out with the timing though, as something rather strange happened the last day: it rained. I very rarely see rain in India at all, since winter is the dry season, and out here in the desert apparently it can go years without raining sometimes. We didn't have tents, and so were sleeping just with blankets out in the desert (actually there was a hut the first night, but I'll get to that shortly). The second night it clouded up and sprinkled just a little, which freaked us all out a bit, but then it stopped after only a few minutes. If it had started genuinely raining in the middle of the night, I have no idea what we would have done, since they definitely didn't have any emergency tents buried away anywhere. But it did start raining pretty good on the third day and rained quite a bit last night, when I was back at my hotel. So I was really feeling for whoever started their camel safari yesterday, because not only was it wet but it got pretty cold. And even though it was dry for the two nights I was out there it was still chilly, which unfortunately managed to make my cough worse and brought back my cold. But I got some cough syrup and more cough drops, and don't have anything big planned for a little while. Plus I've got a decent mattress at my hotel and it's nice and quiet there, so I've been sleeping pretty good. So hopefully all considering, I'll be able to kick this cold for good soon.

Anyway, so the trip started with about an hour's jeep ride into the desert, on a paved road with small villages along the way. Along for the trip was myself, a couple from Norway, a couple from Australia and a Japanese guy. We pulled up alongside six camels on the side of the road, plus the Indian camel driver, who spoke just a little English, and a couple of young helpers. It turned out most of the time they didn't ride camels themselves, but just walked along with one guy leading the pack and the others walking along as well, helping when needed or else just walking along and talking. Sometimes, believe it or not, they were busy talking on their cell phones, since it seemed like we had cell phone service just about everywhere we went. That was actually one of the few complaints we had about the trip, not so much that we cared they were talking on cell phones, but rather that we never felt like we got as far from civilization as we imagined we would with three full days. But as long as you ignored a few buildings or towers off in the distance somewhere, you could easily imagine that you were actually in remote desert in the middle of nowhere. And it was really gorgeous desert, ranging from sage-covered scrub land I guess you'd say, similar to Nevada, to full-on big sandy dunes.

The first morning we got a late start and just went about an hour on the camels, before stopping for lunch at about noon. It took a while for them to make lunch (lunch and dinner was always just a vegetable curry dish with chapati, and sometimes rice, but it was good stuff, and breakfast was toast with jam and fruit) so the six of us just sprawled out on a couple of blankets under a tree and talked while they started up a campfire and worked on lunch. Once we'd finished lunch, nothing much happened in terms of getting back on the camels, and I think we were all wondering what we were waiting for. Eventually I figured out that, even though it wasn't terribly hot, desert protocol was no doubt that you don't bother riding your camels in the heat of the afternoon. So we ended up just lounging around until 4 or so before getting going again. Then we only went for maybe another hour or so, when we came into a little valley between these beautiful dunes, where there was a little thatched hut. That was just before sundown, so we all spread out across the dunes exploring a bit and then watched the sunset, which was amazing. Another small group of camel trekkers arrived at the same spot, three Americans and their camel drivers, who were also staying there for the night. I haven't run across that many Americans in either India or Thailand, so it was nice to hang out with some fellow countrymen. We all hung out around the campfire for the evening, talking as well as playing some cards. Another illustration that we weren't so far away from the world was that an Indian guy came walking up at one point with a bag full of beers and soft drinks to sell to us tourists. Although a semi-cold beer sounded nice, I passed, given my cough. Plus it was getting pretty chilly and I knew I wouldn't want to be getting up to go take a leak a bunch of times in the middle of the night. They gave us plenty of thick blankets (the same ones used for tying stuff down on the camels. Fortunately, I'd brought my own blanket and a sheet to sandwich myself in between). So I stayed pretty warm that night, but between the hard sand (it's soft when you're walking on it, but definitely not so much when you lay on it for a while) and breathing the cold air, I didn't sleep too great, which I'm sure is what brought my cold back.

But still, I woke up the next morning stoked to be out there, especially once the sun rose out of the sand and started warming things up. We got an earlier start on the camels this time and covered more ground, but we soon realized that we were doubling back towards an area where we'd been the previous day. We stopped again for an extended lunch, which we were all thankful for because it got seriously hot that day (I can't even imagine what it's like there in July, must be hellish), and also we were ready for a break from the camels after a good couple of hours of bumping along. But once we got going again we realized that indeed we seemed to be making a loop; and we ended up camping for the night on the other side of the same dunes where we'd been the previous night, probably less than a half mile away. Although we were slightly annoyed at this, it was only slightly since it was such a beautiful area, and we were glad that at least we didn't go back to the same camp. So we played a bunch more cards around the campfire again, plus backgammon, while waiting for dinner, then slept that night under the stars. Or at least it started out that way, then sometime in the middle of the night the stars disappeared as it clouded up, and I was laying there thinking at that point: "Man, it sure better not rain, or we're screwed." Luckily we only got that slight bit of a sprinkle. But the next morning it was still cloudy. Fortunately from there we didn't backtrack again across the same ground to the point from which we'd started, but instead went off in a new direction to a different area of the desert. This time we stopped for lunch at a big tree that was right near a little-used road. Eventually the driver gave us the option of riding the camels a little more, or else just hanging out there and then having the jeep pick us up. It started raining during lunch, and between that and our sore thighs we decided we'd had a pretty good camel experience, and would go with the jeep sooner rather than later.

So, although it wasn't the absolutely authentic camel-in-the-desert experience, it was an all-around good time and I definitely got some good pictures out there, devoid of any evidence of modern civilization. And although camels aren't the smoothest ride, I didn't find them to be all that uncomfortable, and the difference between being down on the ground and sitting 8-10 feet up in the air while being carried along is definitely a big part of the thrill. I'd definitely be interested in doing another one sometime, preferrably if it were going from Point A to Point B so that it was all new territory, and where you were getting out into a little more remote territory, perhaps for a week instead of just a few days.

I've been back in Jaiselmer for a couple of days now, just taking care of assorted things so far, i.e. getting a bunch of film developed (too curious to see them to wait until I get back), getting some shirts tailored, random shopping, doing laundry, paying the monthly bills online, etc. Yesterday afternoon I walked down to a small reservoir on the edge of town, ringed by amazing sandstone buildings. And sometime in the next couple of days I'll most likely go visit a smaller nearby desert town, called Khuhri, where you can hike right out into the dunes. Then at some point here I'll start heading back in the other direction, in other words east. It actually feels good that I'm basically at the halfway point and more or less headed back home from here, although it's obviously going to take a while. But I've pretty well got the rest of my trip here in India planned out, which will involve basically heading for Nepal but with a number of stops along the way, that aren't too far out of the way. In case anyone has a map handy, here are some of the places I'll most likely be heading to next: Jodhpur, Pushkar, Bundi, Bharatpur, Fatehpur Sikri, Orchha and then Nepal. Then from there I'm probably going straight back to Delhi to fly to Thailand on March 27th. Also I reserved the final leg of my flight just recently, from Hawaii back to California, on May 7th. I'd been leaving that open, but happened to check Travelocity and they had a deal direct from the island of Kauai to Oakland for under $200, so I figured I'd better take it while it was available.