Jaipur and Jaisalmer

An Indian epic....

Saturday 13th November

My cold was a bit better but woke up with a bit of Delhi-belly (it had to happen sooner or later). So while the others went sightseeing i played it safe and stayed home. Watched Popeye cartoons and Spiderman in Hindi with the hotel owner's kid.
The guys came back and seems i missed out a bit but not a whole lot. Jaipur was just crazy and full of locals hassling us to buy stuff or start a conversation that would be about sales. And the rewards didn't really seem worth it.

We checked out and when the girls had finished complaining again about the price of the room, we walked 1km to the station (well, the girls got a tuk-tuk). Note, they are not 3 french girls as earlier stated, they are two french girls and a Perisan girl who speaks french.

The train station staff were really helpful and walked us to the right carriage on the right train on the right platform! So 7 of us piled onto the train with our bags and you just have to keep pushing through the crush else you never get anywhere. My seat was in a seperate block from the other guys and there was an Indian lady in my seat. So i pointed to the number on the seat and she shrugged her shoulders and looked down her nose before moving.

I struggled to lift my bag onto the overhead rack and no-one seemed to help for ages, until one guy grabbed one end and helped. I sat down and everyone just sat there in their seats and stared at me, the white man; I tell you, they just sit there and stare, its often the same in the street, at least until i sarcastically wave at them and say 'hello' in English or Hindi. You can maybe accept it from kids but its the adults too.

So I was very hot and bothered when the train rolled out and for those few minutes i hated India and everything about it. And then i calmed down and it was all good. Had a good chat with a businessman. In this part of India, business is conducted in Hindi, whereas around Mumbai they use English. They asked me to speak some Hindi so I said a few words and the guy sitting next to me burst out laughing which annoyed me, so I said to the businessman "why is he laughing at me?', and the businessman said, 'it's okay, it means he appreciates you'. And he made a point of making sure i understood that it was meant in a positive way, not a negative way.


Anyway, there was some space by the other guys so i went to sit by them. It was fun being on the train and having a laugh. Another Indian guy started asking me about the cricket and was disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm. He said i look like Adam Gilchrist, as opposed to the guy in the restaurant the other night who said i look like Ricky Ponting. Anyway, this guy's family lives in the country and they have a camel which they use for agriculture. I was trying understand whether they consider it like a pet and care about it but it got lost in translation. I asked if the camel had a name but he said all camels are called "The ship in the desert".

When the train stops at a station the wretched smell of urine usually engulfs the train so we usually sit with our t-shirts over our noses while waiting to move on. A bit like at school when someone farted.

The train made a scheduled one hour stop in the night so we grabbed some potato pokara, which also have green chillies in (hot!), and we transferred into the sleeper carriage. My stomach was still unsettled (so why did you eat green chillies?), and i had to squat as the train was flying along. At least my Africa trip gave me some transferable skills. And train loos are surprsingly clean, or maybe my expectations have lowered. Got to bed about 2am.


Sunday 14th November

Arrived at Jaisalmer at 5am. I let the others talk to the tuk-tuk drivers, i was knackered and there is no point 7 of us trying to talk to one guy! We headed for the first hostel listed in the LP and it was fine. Just 200 rupees ($4.5) for a double. While the others went exploring again, i stayed near the bathroom again. But then the girls and Matt arranged to go on a camel safari that afternoon so I got myself together and we left at 2pm for an overnight foray into the desert.

We got in the back of the jeep and the guy put on some Hindi-techno-pop and we zippped out of town towards the desert; the tunes were uplifting and put us all in a good mood. 6 camels and 3 guides awaiting us in the Thar desert. Its not like you imagine a desert, with many sand dunes, though. The Thar desert, which extends to Pakistan, 100kms away, is mostly scrub and small bushes.

I got on my camel first (his name was Mula and he was six years old)  and we had already started to wander away from the pack before the others had even got on their camels. But not to worry as my camel mostly had only one speed which i would define as 'quiet slow'. If you smacked him to go faster, he would speed up for a few steps, and then revert back to default speed of 'quite slow'. Just to be clear, when i say smack, its just a slap with the rope, there is no way i hurt the camel, which might be why he didn't make much effort. He would also respond to a guide making a particular clicking sound, and go a bit faster. So i had fun with my poor impersonation of this sound because the camel couldn't quite work out whether or not he had heard the 'go faster' command or not; i watched his ears perk up as he tried to work it out!

Anyway so i ended up at the back with the others waiting for me and Mula. We passed a few villagers attending to their barren-looking gardens and arrived at our destination, a bush next to a small sand dune, after 3 hours, with very sore bums and inner thighs.

So we were bushcamping. Like being in Africa again, but on a smaller scale. At night, the guides shackle the camels with rope around their front legs so they can't wander off too far (maybe not very fair). Anyway the camels disappeared into the night. I helped the guides to make a small fire and the girls helped make chipatis. The food was great, chipatis, spicy dhal, rice, and Indian chai. After dinner we sat around the fire, under the stars and the guides sang Hindi and Bollywood songs; probably sounds cheesy but who cares, it was great. They showed us a few games you can play with sticks in the sand including tigers v goats, which, surprisingly, the goats often win. The guides were great company and very honest, open people.



Monday 15th November

A very comfortable nights sleep in my sleeping bag. Woke at 7am to the morning light on the desert. The guides had made us toast and jam and hard-boiled eggs. And we were soon back on the camels heading back. After about half an hour i was bit over the whole camel safari thing and couldnt wait to get back! You travel in a single-file so you can't really talk to anyone as you go, and the scenery was ok but not spectacular. It was really starting to drag when we finally stopped. Of course, travelling by camel is like flying; the taking off and the landing are the dangerous bits and Mula nearly threw me off instead of letting me down gently.

Anyway, we were soon back in the jeep, with the same music as yesterday, and back at the hostel by 10am. Some people do 4 or 5 day safaris. I am glad we didn't. We had a great time, and 1 night was enough.