Day 102: waking up in a desert

Waking up in a desert is cold. Running down a sand dune to make it back to your mattress in time for the self-timer on your camera is a lot harder than you might think. Realizing the saddle on your camel is a little lopsided makes the ride a full out work-out. The whole day was slightly askew, in a wonderful, but sometimes uncomfortable way. The whole night (all 18 hours of it) on a bus to Udaipur was not as wonderful. At least we weren’t sharing our sleeper cabin for two with two other people! At least we had baked goods to snack on. At least our window opened AND closed. (This is what optimism in India sounds like.)

Nearly all of us on the camel safari were heading out of the city at some point in the afternoon or evening. We would run into each other in the city buying souvenirs and having a third coffee or juice just to give us something to do. Little did we know, Andrew and I would be getting on the very worst bus ride yet.

I can assure you that I am not elaborating. Because at our first delay, I didn’t flinch (ok, maybe I did a little) when heavy parcels were being thrown onto the top of the bus. At our second delay, around one in the morning, I figured they would fix the bus soon, or the one person we were waiting for would arrive, regardless we would be on our way. And I fell asleep. Around three in the morning, Andrew nudged me awake, we hadn’t moved, another bus had arrived for us to get on instead. At our third delay, I opened up the window to the countryside. A tree and rocks, not a road were right outside my window. Other travelers opened up their windows. The Israeli in the cabin in front of our cabin, yelled at the men trying to fix the problem (of not being on a road!) by shoving rocks under the wheels that were not budging.

It. was. ridiculous.

We don’t know if they were avoiding roads with tolls… or maybe it had something to do with the heavy parcels on top of the bus that they didn’t want to get caught with… or maybe the heavy parcels weighed the bus down so much that it didn’t matter what kind of road we were driving on, it would be a problem… or maybe the combination of all of the buses we’ve been on in India are so old- too old- that they shouldn’t be on the road?

It still could have been worse. We could have been in the sleeper compartment the Korean girl was in with a window that wouldn’t close. She woke up at some point in the middle of the night without her bag. (It fell out of the window while she was sleeping) Apparently her passport was in that bag. We rolled into Udaipur around 9 or 10 in the morning, exhausted, to say the least. But, it could have been worse.

Day 101: a camel safari

Some friends of mine highly recommended going on a camel safari while we were in Rajasthan. It seemed as if the place to do it was in Jaisalmer, so that’s where we went. We walked through Jaisalmer Fort in the morning, and then left for our camel safari by the afternoon. As always, my friends know best. The camel safari was grand. It was the perfect amount of time on a camel (any longer and we would have all been walking funny), there was awesome food (prepared over an open fire in the desert), really great company, and a meteor shower to make sleeping under the stars absolutely perfect.

Jaisalmer Fort differs from the others that we’ve visited in India in that there are around two thousand people currently living within the fort walls. Unfortunately, because of an increase in water consumption (a lot of this is due to tourism and more specifically, tourists staying within the fort walls) the foundation of the fort is eroding away. We read many warnings against contributing to the erosion, and didn’t intend to buy anything within the walls as a small effort to discourage the growth of tourism within the fort… But I failed when I found another blanket I HAD to have right inside the first gate! I know, I know, not cool. And I wasn’t going to, but then I did…

The fort feels like a tiny city. A tiny touristy city. But a little bit more laid back without the buzz of the city streets outside of the walls. We walked through the shops and outside palaces within the walls and even took cover with a herd of cattle while it rained. The view from the walls with cannons was beautiful, but I was amazed at how much litter was strewn on the other side. It was quite different from how well maintained Meherangarh Fort was in Jodhpur, or Agra Fort in Agra.

Our camel safari started with a jeep ride out of Jaisalmer to the abandoned- a ghost village of Kuldara about 25 km west of the city. In 1825, 84 Brahmin Villages were abandoned in just one night. Our guide, Aniket (Mr. Desert Junior) told us (from my understanding) that the British opened up Mumbai to trade, therefore the Silk Road was no longer used to the same extent. The ruling maharajah at the time insisted on keeping taxes over the villages the same, even though these villages full of people dependent on the Silk Road were not making nearly enough to make ends meet. So, they left. They only took what they could carry and in one single night, all 84 villages were abandoned and it’s a mystery as to where they went. Aniket confirmed that absolutely no one knows where they landed- if they relocated in India or in another country.

After the ghost town visit, it was time for CAMELS! I thought mine (in the two pictures below) looked rather amiable, and then I climbed on, and she wasn’t (I think it was a ‘she’) as content. At least she didn’t sneeze on me. Because that happened. By the German dude’s camel. And it was gross. As my sister Becca has said before (it happened to her when she was 2 or 3 years old) “The camel ‘neezed on me!” I tried to explain it to the German dude, but he didn’t really get it…

Ok, so I thought it was going to be more sand-duney. And I would have to fight the urge to jump off of my camel to make sand angels. Or something like that. And I was surprised that there were still electric lines running through the desert. I kinda thought we would be a little more removed, but it was still cool. It was very cool. We were on the camels in a line for about an hour and a half (maybe two?) as we made our way to the dunes where we were going to eat and camp out for the night. Andrew was at the rear of the group and chatted with the German dude’s parents about life in Korea, while I talked to the German dude directly behind me about life in India (where he currently lives).

We got to the sand dunes right around dusk, but there wasn’t much of a sunset. We all climbed up a dune for the view and then ambled our way back to the blankets and fire that was being set up for us while we waited for dinner. Dinner, completely prepared from scratch in the sand was amazing. Better than that. It was dark by the time we were served heaping plates of rice, roti, and curry. We could barely see what we were eating, but it was delicious.

Around the fire, Aniket talked of his father, Mr. Desert, the one who founded the company, Sahara Travels. He’s famous in Rajasthan, to say the least. But I’ll let Aniket tell you all about him when you go on your camel safari. Some of the group left after dinner, some went to bed under the stars soon after that, Andrew and I stayed up with our new Aussie friends chatting about our adventures in India and elsewhere.

We started seeing shooting stars and realized we picked the perfect night to sleep under the stars. Mattresses were arranged in a circle with heavy blankets folded on top. We all slipped off our shoes and crawled under the covers to get warm. Deserts are COLD at night! And then I fell asleep with only my eyes peeking out of the covers trying to stay open to see all of the stars falling towards us.