The Desert

I know I mentioned our traumatic train ride in the post above, but since the trauma carried into half the next day, I thought it should be mentioned here again. Seriously dirty. After being shuttled to our hostel at the crack of dawn, we each showered, washed our bags, and hung up our dirty clothes without saying a word to each other. Jalsaimer is a desert town consisting of what looks like a giant sand castle with a community inside. We were lucky enough to stay in a hostel inside the fortress, even though Lonely Planet recommended that we stay outside the fort. Since I was sick, I laid low while Missy and Maire went out to explore the town. I was able to venture out in search of medicine. Instead, I sat for a pot of tea with an old lady as she gave me homemade herbal medicine for my symptoms. She told me to take them as often as I want, and to not be scared by the looks of them. (They looked like little rabbit poops). I mean...some old Indian grandmother tells me to take homegrown pills, I am taking them. Now, on to the good stuff.

The following morning we piled into a Jeep and set off for the Thar Desert. We had signed up for a 48 hour camel safari!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Yes, we were that excited). We made a pit stop at an old deserted village that has been uninhabited since the 16th century. The village used to house the wealthiest people in India, the Brahma caste. The legend has it that an old king wanted to marry one of the women of the village, but since the king was of a lower caste, it was not allowed. Out of punishment, he threatened to destroy the village, so over the course of one night, all 280 inhabitants fled. To this day, no one knows where they went. A few years ago, a couple of Japanese tourists and one Irish tourist snuck into the village at night with metal detectors and started excavating for gold and other objects. Since then, the Indian government has declared the spot sacred and now it is protected. Very cool place.

The next stop on our Jeep tour was to meet our safari guides and our camels. Sukriya and Suhtee were the most fun, honest, and kind guides we could have asked for on this adventure. Amazing boys. They packed our camels, helped us onto the saddles, ordered us to "lean back", and we were up! Well, Maire had some trouble getting on hers, which was completely entertaining to watch, but other than that, we were naturals. Camels intrigue me. They fart all the time, make #2 in the middle of walking, chew their food with their entire mouth for hours, and make the most obscene noises I have ever heard from an animal. We had three male camels, and they were awesome. Missy rode Jamal, who wore hemp necklaces and had to be held by our guides the whole time because he was slow. (I think he was mentally challenged and made sure to point this out to Missy as often as I could throughout our journey). Maire rode Mr. Magoo, who was the wisest and oldest of the camels, and the one that led the camel safari. And finally, I rode Lala, who yelled and made noises the entire time because he always needed attention. He also liked to race with Mr. Magoo to be in front. We were meant to be.

After spending a decent amount of time interacting with our furry friends, Maire, Missy, and I decided to give them voices and personalities. (When you are in the middle of the desert, your creativity and resourcefulness really comes out). Jamal, Missy's mentally challenged camel, was given the voice of a seventeen year old stoner kid from California. Mr. Magoo was given the deep, soothing voice of an old English professor. And Lala was given the voice of a mid-forties, sassy African American woman. The real reason for this is because that is really the only voice I can truly impersonate, so poor Lala, was referred to as "she" for the entirety of our trip. You may not see it now, but giving our camels voices really made things fun for us. I laughed so hard at one point, I had to get off my camel.

About 100 yards into our adventure, we stopped for lunch. Seriously...we were on the camels for about twenty minutes before we parked under a tree for three hours. Our guides unpacked all of our camels, layed our blankets under the shade for each of us, and then set up shop under a different tree to make us lunch. It wasn't until an hour later, when they delivered us noodles, fruit, and chapatis (bread) on three silver platters, that I realized, "Girls...we are REALLY roughing it out here in the desert". Please refer to the video at the bottom of this post for the real deal.

After lunch, we rode for two more hours through some gypsy villages. The gypsies respond to the weather and move every 20-30 days to build new houses. We stopped for the day, in the middle of nowhere, on a beautiful sand dune just in time for sunset. There were two dogs dutifully waiting for us when we arrived...friends of our guide I am assuming. Our chief guide, Sukriya, started the fire for dinner then called us over to teach us how to make chapatis from scratch. The five of us ate dinner around a campfire, as we shot questions at our guides. During dinner, we learned that Sukriya is 26, and has been leading camel safaris in the Thar Desert for ten years. He is from a small town near the border of Pakistan, he is a strict Muslim, makes the equivalent of $30/ month, and he sees his family every year during the month of April. He also loves his job. After dinner, we watched a few Indian music videos on Sukriya's phone, stared at the starry sky and sang songs from Aladdin and Lion King, then ran up the dune to have Sukriya tuck us into our camel blankets and sing us a song in Hindi to put us to sleep. Maire, Missy, and I stayed up another hour telling stories and laughing about our Indian adventures so far, and counting constellations and shooting stars in the sky above us. Maire and Missy drifted off to sleep easily, but I stayed up the entire night battling the sand beetles that were crawling all around us. I have a serious issue with critters that I need to tackle on this trip.

We woke up the following morning to the sun rising over a sleepy, deserted sand dune. These are the images that are supposed to change your life forever, but since I was up most of the night, I was bitter and cranky. Sukriya brought us breakfast and tea while we watched the sun come up; and the camels, dogs, and local goats rummaged around us. After packing up camp, we trekked through the desert on our camels for most of the morning. At one point, we hopped off our camels in the middle of the road to pick and eat wild watermelons. Sukriya literally struck the melons across a rock to open them, and we used our hands as spoons to pick out the fruit. I thought, "this must be what it was like for what's his name from "Into the Wild"". We arrived at our destination for the evening just in time. Maire, Missy, and I had sore asses, serious farmer tans, and my sickness was flaring up. We camped on a bigger sand dune near a local village. The local children ran up to greet us, per usual. They were wearing dirty, ragged clothing, and huge smiles on their faces. They were all so beautiful, I found myself staring at them. Who knew desert people made such attractive offspring? I quickly named this pack of kids "the children of the desert". We gave them paper and pens, fed them crackers, and played freeze tag with them. We also spent about an hour making videos they could watch of themselves. What a fun experience. After the children of the desert retreated to their village, we sat up with Sukriya as he made us dinner and told us hilarious stories about Japanese tourists. We were surprised to hear that most tourists on these camel safaris tend to keep to themselves and treat the guides like servants. He was very happy with us and told us he would never forget our group. I teared up. Really...I did.

I have to admit, the next day's ride back to camp was horrendous. We were running late to meet our driver and had three hours of riding ahead of us. To make up time, Sukriya made us trot on our camels for almost the entire duration of the trip. I have never felt such pain and discomfort. Sukriya even tied a scarf around Missy's boobs to try and help with the "bumpiness". By the time we made it to the jeep, none of us could walk and I was swearing off all animals that could be saddled: camels, horses, donkeys, you name it. Done.

All in all, our 48 hours in the desert on camels was truly a special time. I really appreciated the life of such remote villagers and loved sleeping on the sand dunes and living like gypsies. I did not appreciate the camel riding. Now we are off to the train station to endure an 18 hour non air-conditioned train back to Delhi. Missy and I will say goodbye to Maire, who is returning to her life in London, and then we are hopping on a 14 hour bus to Manali. The two of us will spend the next two weeks in Northern India, appreciating cooler climates and the Himalayan Mountains. Between my cold, the dust flying in through the train windows, and our bruised thighs from riding camels; we should be a pleasant bunch for the next 37 hours of traveling :)

Namaste.

Hello from the desert: