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Published: February 23rd 2007
Arriving in a dark and cold Jaisalmer at five in the morning off the overnight train was pretty unpleasant, on top of this we didn’t know if the hotel booking we had made online had worked properly (it hadn’t) and there was a man in the middle of the road flagging down rickshaws and making people pay a ‘tourist tax’. Or rather trying to, our driver wasn’t having any of it and drove straight past then man. It wasn’t that we would have minded paying a tax (it was after all incredibly cheap, 20 rps each I think) but rather that creeping up on people in the dark and trying to get money out of them does seem somewhat unorthodox.
The bonus however of arriving at that time in the morning however was when we had finally persuaded the hotel to let us have a room then we could go straight to sleep, thus in effect getting an extra nights sleep for free, bonus. The hotel was a real treat for us, the Fort Rajwada is described by the rough guide as being a 5 star hotel but with affordable prices, it goes on to describe it as one of
the best deals in the world no less. And it is very nice, and it was lovely to be able to sunbathe around the pool - the water was FREEZING as the night temperatures get so low. The only problem with the hotel is that it mainly caters for tour groups so during the day it feels a little bit empty and lifeless, oh and the man knocked on our door at 8am every morning to see if we had any washing to do which was a little bit odd.
The city of Jaisalmer is pretty and again dominated by the fort, unlike the Jodhpur fort however this one is still occupied although it seems mainly to be tourist shops and guests house now. It is also crumbling to pieces, due apparently to the falling water level which is causing subsidence. This of course is where the money from the tax should be going but it did not seem like there was very much going on in the way of repairs.
One of the main reasons why people come out to Jaisalmer is to get a closer look at the desert, it is very much a desert town,
and what do you get in deserts? Camels of course. One lady insisted that the desert was a bit rubbish because ‘it wasn’t like the deserts back at home’ (home being Israel) and because people live there then it can’t be a desert can it? She then proceeded to tell us not to go to the Taj Mahal (the next stop on our trip) and explained how she and her daughter only ever ate in their 5* hotels during their trips but that day, being their last day they decided to experiment with ‘local food’ and had come to café to eat salad. It all seems like such a shame as eating in cafes and checking out the street food was so much fun, a definite India highlight. My favourite street food was chickpea curry served on a leaf with about ten different condiments and a piece of bread, all for 7 rupees, or the fried potatoes, yum. In fact I loved it all and the only bad things we had to eat in India were poor imitations of western food, like the memorable white bread and grated cheese sarnies that we were given as our complementary breakfast in one
hotel, not impressed.
But I digress, back to the camels. We ended up booking a three-day, two night camel trek with a company called Adventure Travel. This is one organisation I would totally recommend, we had such an amazing time on our trip and the guys who ran it really looked after us. We were collected from our hotel at about 6am which was a little tough but we were in the desert just after sunrise and meeting our camels for the first time. We also met the three guides who came with us and our fellow camel trekkers from the good old USofA Nevan and Megan.
Getting onto a camel the first time is a little bit strange, and even more so when they stand up, camels look a bit like a collapsible deck chair when the fold their legs up and the jerky movements always make you feel like you are going to fall off, but guess what, we never did, even when Tom’s camel tried to escape and trotted off to a far away bush. Tom’s camel Moorea was just brilliant. Instead of desperately trying to find food and lady camels when we would stop
for the night like all the others, Moorea just stood, and looked. Standing and looking were just about his favourite things to do, other than eat but instead of munching on the trees he was the only on who ate food out of a bag provided by the camel people, presumably because if he was not given food on a plate then he would not eat, bless him. Liz’s camel was called Ferrari. He was a little bit more feisty and didn’t end up at the back the whole time.
So we had two nights and three days casually wandering around on camels in the desert. The mornings started with the rising sun over the sand dunes, followed by a wake up cup of chai from Ali and the other ‘sherpa’ guys. Forcing ourselves out of these really warm and comfy swag bags (spongy mattress, duvet & loads of blankets) and into the morning cold, glance with a smile at dear old Moorea munching on his breakie, then shuffling over to the camp fire we would then warm ourselves on some porridge like stuff. The guys would then run off in search of the four naughty camels who had
tried to bounce themselves to freedom in the night (their front legs are loosely tied to their back legs). Once saddled up it was time to go the three or so hours until lunch and when the heat of the midday sun became too much and it was time for a nap in the shade. Lunch and dinner was always a major highlight, Ali and the boys managed to rustle up something really tasty from absolutely nothing - a variety of spicy vegetable curries and stews. Our contribution was to thin out dough to make chapattis. Of course this was all washed down with loads of sugary chai.
What can I say about the desert? Well it’s really beautiful and unusually for India, doesn’t have too many people living there. Much of the time we walked across desolate and flat farmers’ fields where nothing grew. According to Ali stuff only grew once the ground was drenched by the monsoons. So for a couple of months of the year the land springs to life and things like water melons and beans flourish before the summer heat dries the soil out and everything dies back. For the rest of the year
the nearby farming villages largely survive on herding goats and cows across the vast, dry plains. It’s not long before we would come across a village or two. The first day the four of us were invited into this guy’s mud house to have a look at his walls decorated in shinny bits of mirrors and metal. He then proudly showed us his camel. It was a bit worse for wear, tired out from lugging carts of water from a nearby well, and he just sat there with his legs tied tightly together and his stomach gurgling and his tongue welling up into an enormous balloon…time to leave!
Another small village we dropped by on that first afternoon, this boy generously shared with us his last watermelon. At the same time the cutest little billy goat bleated around our legs, plus I was impressed by the arrangement of the mud houses, which were enclosed by an ingenious outer wall that kept the monsoons out of the central courtyard, yet allowed the water to run freely away from the grassy roofs.
Whether it be lunch or the end of the day, we were lucky enough to make camp in
our very own sand dune. The sand was just stunning and the romance of the place was only improved by the camels, who funnily enough weren’t that great at climbing sand dunes with us on the back. They have these amazingly padded feet but often huffed and puffed their way up while the boys tugged at the reins which cut through their nostrils. At the start of the second day it was time for Nevan and Megan plus two camels and a ‘sherpa’ to leave us behind. We were down to three camels for four people. Unfortunately in minutes we were down to two usable camels. Our trusty friend Moorea had strained a muscle in his hind leg, and with Tom on top he just simply collapsed, forcing Tom to land on a thorn bush. Poor old Moorea looked even more pensive for the rest of the trip and Tom was left to pull out the pesky thorns (throughout the trip they turned up everywhere in people’s clothing) in his hands and clothes, and commandeer another camel. The sand dunes by the way were great for running down and falling over in, they also provided stunning viewpoints to gawp at
the sunsets and the distant Pakistani border.
One memorable experience was teaching kids in a village simple card games while our camels filled up with water. As with most villages in India, the arrival of tourists generates great excitement amongst the kids who play up for the cameras and who then in return expect us to provide pens, money or sweets. To stop our feeling of guilt, Liz came up with the great idea of teaching the youngsters a card game or two with our novelty yellow submarine playing cards. Loads of smiles, squealing and cheating followed (mostly from Tom!) so it was only fair that the cards were left behind when we moved on. At our final village, the largest we visited (it had electricity, a mosque and a school), the kids cunningly directed us to their shop and so a crowd of gleeful children were showered with sweets.
In a nutshell that was our camel trek. We hadn’t washed or changed our clothes for three long camel smelling days. We had the privilege of sleeping snugly under the limitless starlit sky and Tom even made a wish after a satellite/star shot by. I will miss the
camels with their huge and beautiful eyelashes. If only Moorea could have fitted in my rucksack…Back to the relative bustle of Jaisalmer. A quick shower and sleep in a cheap room round the corner from Adventure Travel and then it was an overnight train east to Jaipur. I wonder what the capital of Rajasthan has to offer?
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