Jaisalmer - The Golden City

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Jan 26th- Settled down for night after two and a half days of being out on the open road (aka - The Great Thar Desert!). We took a camel safari an hour into the desert along with an Aussie couple, an older French couple from Marsailles, and a 30 something French guy from Paris. We rode the camels for about 2 hours before stopping for lunch. Handmade chapati bread with cabbage/veggie curry! Yummy! And of course Chai tea. Love Chai tea now!! Mom go get some from Starbucks! Austin - we have a date at Starbucks for some Chai tea when I fly back into Brussels! Us, the tourists, took a nice little nap in the sun before setting off for a good 2/3 hours of riding to the sand dunes. We settled for nighttime at an amazing location in the sand dunes! After climbing and jumping all around them like children we settled down for some chai, chai, chai, and more curry with rice and chapatti bread. The Beer Camel came round (yes, like the ice cream man that comes around the neighborhood - there is your friendly, local beer camel). Two Kingfisher’s please! After more jumping pictures and talking with the lovely French, the guides made us a camp fire and we all settled around there talking, playing games in the sand etc. Falling asleep under the stars sounds awfully romantic and beautiful doesn’t it??? Wrong! F* Bloody Freezing!!! And trying to find a “bathroom” in the middle of the night with wild dogs and camels roaming around - not so cool! Being woken up before the break of dawn is also not on my top 10 things I love about India list either. However, we awoke with a hot cup of chai tea and the rising sun over the dunes to help recurculate the blood in our bodies. After saying goodbye to the rest of the group, our guide took me and Pete for another day and a half of camel trekking. Aboard Roger, Rocket, and Babo, we made our way within 60 kilometers of Pakistan. Fun. Apparently they have a real electric frence that causes death upon contact. It was a great relaxing day! A bit too much chilli in our lunch and quite a sore bum though! Oh well. Camp for the night was made in the smaller sand dunes. We played some Frisbee before our trusty guide made us dinner. Yes, we didn’t have to do anything! We did ofter though! India is crazy though! Another amazing dinner and camp fire later, ready for bed under a super think heap of blankets and of course our dog, we slept one more night under the stars. Amazing view once the moon went away! Awake again a bit after dawn for another 2 hours on the camels before being picked up by the jeep and heading home. I’m going to have Pete describe how amazing our dinner was though. . . . . ☺

Pete (Yes, he is still alive!) - Just about!! Legs aching, smelling like a rotten turnip, and an ass as numb as the new prisoner in H block. I would however, not change a second of the last three days for any amount of comfortable beds and maternity doughnuts! The simple tranquility of the open desert is truly extraordinary, for periods the only sound is that of your camels footsteps! After the amazing sunsets, the cold, cold nights are illuminated by the moon and starlight. Free from the oppression of light pollution, the night sky is truly beautiful! The highlight of the trip however, is none of the above, rather the moment Roger (my camel) nailed a sheep on the right temple with an absolute thunderbolt of a kick! (Shawn Michaels would have been proud!) Knocking it out for a good 30 seconds, twitching away ….. Honestly I thought he had killed the thing, mercifully however, it survived, as did we due to the lack of a farmer!!
Next for Udaipar and hopefully a train to Mumbai, if we have defeated the weird and oppressive regiem of waitlisting???? What??? Yes, we are on a waitlist for a train!! Strange that we still had to pay for it and stranger still that we wont get a full refund if we don’t get a seat!! Before that however the small matter of a 15 hour bus. Honestly, I do hope my posterior will forgive me after the past few days and the next couple! May have to get someone to give me a massage???? Fat chance I think!!

Okay, bed time, speak soon my lovers!!

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