Home port for the ships of the desert

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The SIM saga continued today, with the shop asking the hotel owner to give me a personal recommendation. After consulting with his lawyer, he refused to do so, claiming that if I subsequently committed a terrorist offence (the rationale behind needing the recommendation), he would be considered an accomplice. I could see where he was coming from, though I don't know why this wasn't a problem when I bought the SIM in Delhi, so I trudged back to the shop and told them the news. Of course, this wasn't an unsurmountable problem, and they decided to proceed with the application anyway.

I won't go into all the gory details, but what with not being able to photocopy the relevant pages of my passport because of a powercut, as well as umpteen unsuccessful attempts by the shop to top up my balance to a decent level, by the end of the day I still didn't have a working phone.

In amongst this tedious admin, Mike and I paid a visit to the camel breeding farm out in the desert about 10km south of Bikaner. Though Mike delivered a superlative piece of haggling to land us a cheap auto with wait time included, I think we both would have gladly paid twice as much to have had one with either padding or suspension, as the 20-odd minute journey was most uncomfortable.

The farm lived up to expectations, in that it was full of camels. We turned up at feeding time, so were greeted with an array of camel backsides as they tucked into their afternoon tea. A small information centre gave details of the different types of camels that are bred at the farm (Bikaneri, Jaisalmeri, and Kachchhi) and what they're used for. There was a picture of a double-decker camel-drawn school bus, plus numerous items made from bits of camels. Other than camels, the only other noteworthy sighting was a raven hanging in a noose (some sort of deterrent to other ravens?), so we were on our way back to Bikaner after about half an hour.

Mike departed to Jaisalmer on the 10PM overnight bus, a journey that his e-mail of the next day revealed to be a bit of an endurance test. I'll be following in his footsteps in a few days' time, so maybe I need to look at some other alternatives.

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