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Published: January 19th 2007
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Where did everyone go?
Over the hill into the sands beyond. It would appear that is as much of a story about getting to each place as there is to each of the cities themselves. And the trip to Jaisalmer is no different, but I’ll keep this one short. Basically imagine being on a bus for 14 hours traveling through the night on a road in the desert, that’s not made but currently under construction. I felt like a piece of salt being thrown around in a damn shaker with no way out. Well that’s the trip, plus throw in a change of bus at 4am in the morning and a little hanging around, brilliant. In summary, it was bumpy, cold with little to no chance of shut eye. Just what you want when you arrive at a new city, 10am in the morning to be pounced upon by Indian touts throwing business cards and holding signs to “the best” guest house in town- oh bugger off you delinquents.
Anyway not that I’m complaining, half the fun has been getting from A to B, just sometimes it gets a little to much. So after traveling through the desert, and when I say desert it’s more like central Australia, dust, sand, scrub
Jaisalmer Fort
Golden Sandstone fort rising from the desert. and a horizon line (there’s not much to see out here) we arrived at the ancient city Fort of Jaisalmer. A wonderful sandstone city plonked in the middle of nowhere. The Fort and surrounding town appear to have been placed amongst the sandy desert as if made like a giant sand castle. The city is know as the ‘Golden City’, obviously because of it foundations in sandstone design and construction. The Fort area is spectacular and like stepping back in time. Magnificent houses, mansions and havelis lie within the walls, displaying exquisitely carved facades from sandstone and timber. The detailing is so unique and elaborate. The streets are narrow laneways, quite, escaping the desert heat because of the shear density and vertical nature of the surrounding buildings.
The real reason we headed this direction was to experience the Rajastan Desert and the well known Camel Safari tours allowing a glimpse into the hard life of the area. Originally we had planned to do a 3 day 2 night trek, but once experiencing this delight, we cut it short to a 1 night 2 day adventure, and my arse is thanking me for it as well. Oh, the pain. Apparently,
there’s something adventurous and surreal about riding a camel in the desert, but the reality comes hitting hard damn quick. Having your legs spread straddled across the camel’s saddle 3 feet, and grinding your butt into a metal saddle for hours on end is not enjoyable. The first 10 minutes are a laugh- the camel walking, taking in the desert shrub landscape…la-de-la, but a couple of hours into it you kind of realize that it’s the desert so it looks the same in every direction, the trot of the camel is causing immense pain, further more potentially causing permanent damage relating to the ability to have kids, and then its hot by day and cold at night.
Lucky me, my camel for the expedition was named “Mr John” (cousin I think to Mr Ed), it turns out Mr john was a randy little bugger in need of some womanly love. (Not sure what your all thinking at the moment but end it there). For the entire trip this camel, trod along making some of the most ridiculous noises I’ve ever heard. Basically a deep burp and gargle from the mouth, howling like into the air, calling for a female
View from Fort
Township below the Fort and the desert stretching endlessly behind. partner. It was like we stuck in the middle of a Star Wars set with the desert and all these beastly noises; the sand-people laughing in the distance. Not the most pleasant of experiences, when you combine this with the constant, shitting, farting, and burping the complementing smells to form one big giant…pong! They sink. Not to mention that poor old “Mr John” had a lower lip problem as well. He looked like ‘Bubber’ from ‘Forest Gump’, this lower lip was just hanging out swaying in the wind, not a camel with looks, but a good breed as I was told, Polo champion in fact. In the evening we set up a camp sight, watched the sun set and waited a feast to be compiled by our budding guides. It turned out what we got was pretty much the same as lunch. Boiled veg, in some kind of yellow water sauce with no flavor, rice and bread. We were promised so much at the reception/ticketing counter and they weren’t quite delivering. About this time as well, as the sun dropped, the sniffles that I had the night before on the bus ride decided to go into full strength cold and
flu. My nose became a fountain, and the fact that we were sleeping under the stars was not going to help the situation. Upon sunrise, cold, miserable, sleepless I figure that by the end of the day I would be all but done and pulled the pin short and decided to skip the second night and headed back to the Fort with the rest of the group (they had only signed up for 1 night 2 days). Thank Christ I did chuck in the towel because otherwise there would have been some serious implications to my ability to father a child. As it was the end of day 2, the final 1 hour of the trek I had to walk the camel as I could bear the pain in the arse any longer. Like I said, it looks more exciting than it is, grateful for the experiences, but that’s me and camel safari’s truly done and dusted.
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