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Published: September 22nd 2005
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The love story or Shari and Raji begins on a blustering hot mid-September day in the city of Bikaner in the state of Rajestan…
As we stood in the courtyard of small desert villa 20 km outside of Bikaner, we met for the first time. Their figures were striking: legs that seemed to travel downward forever, narrow hips and a humpish voluptuousness, long, curling eyelashes, pouty lips, surprising teeth, all accented by the aloofness of their expressions. It just seemed meant to be as we climbed on top of our new camel friends, but the perfect peace was shattered as Raji began to guffaw and sputter as Thalia climbed on her. And then Shari, not to be outdone, split the dry, desert air like the sputtering end of an inflated balloon, introducing us into his soon to be notorious flatulence. And this is how it started.
The we began our trek into the empty desert—Thalia and I on mounted camels, our three guides with identically stained betel nut teeth. (Betel nut is similar to chewing tobacco but more detrimental to cosmetic dental health—leaves teeth nice and reddish-brown), and a third camel pulling a cart of supplies. We bounced and
jostled our way out into the desert, mopping our brows and downing bottle upon bottle of mineral water as we attempted to adjust to the dry punishing desert and the beating our bums were enduring as we straddled our saddled camels. Life, like camels, travels slowly at all times in the desert, but during the heat of the day any organism that values its life quickly finds refuge in the shade. We were no exception, and we spent each afternoon between 12 and 3:30 laying on a pallet under a shade tree. Our attempt to remain as cool during this time basically involved moving as little as possible, but even in the shade it could feel as if you were literally being cooked by the parching heat of the desert. But after our exhausting afternoon siesta we returned to our furry, smelly friends to punish out bottoms for another three hours before making camp around sunset. There our guides cooked us a nice Indian meal of dal, an eggplant dish, another dish of stewed tomatoes and onions, some rice, and chapatis; this, we soon found out would be our meal for lunch and dinner for the following two days as
That
As I said, the ladies were lining the streets once they saw my icy hot stunning desert style. well. For breakfast though we would get toast, eggs, jam, juice, and fruit, what the guides called Amerikan breakfast. We were well fed, though we couldn’t always eat, due to the heat—warm food just doesn’t seem appetizing when your body is a bit overheated.
Ah, you might want an idea of what kind of scenery we saw as we traveled through the desert. Here’s a bit of an example:………………………small tree……………little bush……………..<
>……antelope………..tiny plant……………………a bit of hill…..couple little trees………….COWS……….some more bushes……scrawny goats………SAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
You get the idea, and this pattern basically repeats itself over and over in different orders and such. So, no, the desert isn’t replete of life. There are actually quite a few animals and plants living in the desert, not living large mind you, but they are living. We also passed through a few small villages on the way. There we could see the way that they lived, which as far as we could tell was very simply. They had homes built out of either concrete or packed mud, many times they had thatched roofs of straw, and a lot of the fences were composed of packed, sun-dried mud. And in each village without fail, when we would pass, kids would stream out of their homes to wave and yell at us in Hindi. Most of the time it was just a Namaste (hello) or Ta-ta (bye bye), but they always stared unabashedly at our foreigness.
Our journey would have continued in this manner for the entire 2 nights and 3 days if on the afternoon of the second day we weren’t completely surprised by an unanticipated sandstorm. It took place during our mandatory afternoon siesta time, which meant that we were lounging on our pallet, reading, and otherwise doing a lot of nothing. And quite suddenly, the clouds swooped in over us and as I looked up all I could see was a gray and dirty cloud billowing towards us. Immediately, we were engulfed in swirling sand, diving, swooping, and exploring all those nooks and crannies where sand is not to be. And if that was not enough of an annoyance, the desert gave off what I swear was a little chuckle, and then started spitting light rain on us, quickly reducing us to dusty, muddy desert travelers. Essentially all we could while we were stuck in this purgatory with no shelter or escape Shari and Me!
Do-da-do-dee...best of friends in the end, but not sad to see him go! was to wrap ourselves in sheets, cover all of our orifices, and wait. But such a miserable desert experience it was! But just think, now can really start stories with, "So this one time when I was on a camel..."
Anyway, without further excitement, we returned from the arid desert to our only slightly less arid refuge at Bhairon Vilas in Bikaner. There however we at least had running water, a little satellite television, and hard beds to help us feel a little bit more like humans. Ah, but this heat…it just never seems to relent. And for that reason I think that I will hightail it, very soon, down to the seaside. However, as it’s a long journey to the sea my next stop is going to be in Udaipur, a city known for its cameo appearance in James Bond’s Octopussy. Those of you who have recently seen a Bond marathon on TBS may remember the lake palace which James so stealthily visits—that is Udaipur.
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