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Published: January 23rd 2008
Dessert Trekking Expedition (Youth Hostels Association of India)
Organized in the month of Nov-2007 by Youth Hostels Association of India, this was the National Trekking event.
This trekking expedition was organized in the THAR dessert in Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) after 5 long years many were eagerly waiting for this. Trekkers from all over India came together for this dessert trekking expedition.
My group was JS-8, having 50 trekkers in total. People from age group of 20 to 55 were the part of it.
Here are the day by day details of the whole expedition.
Day 01: REPORTING at Base Camp
---------------------------------------------- On day 1 you report to the base camp which was Border Security Home Grounds, 4 kms from the Railway station. As soon as you report you get yourself registered, an I-card is issued and the tent no. is allotted. If report around lunch time you can have lunch there itself.
Rest of the day is at leisure. You can visit city and see the beautiful architecture and rich heritage of Jaisalmer.
You need to report back to camp by 6:00pm. You are allotted rucksack and inner (for sleeping in). If you don’t have a backpack/rucksack you
can use one allotted by YHAI or if you have a good one of your own then you can use this rucksack to put your extra belongings that you will not be needing for rest of your trip.
After the evening tea soon you hear the whistle for dinner at around 7:00pm. Around 8:00pm you gat a call for camp fire. Camp fire at YHAI camps if electrical or with candle, this is done so to save our precious trees. So you indirectly contribute to environment also…. ;-)
By 9:30pm lights are switched off and you go to good night sleep.
Highlights of the day: *******************
-Reporting at base camp.
Lunch: (12-2:00pm) Base camp.
Tea: 4:30pm, Soup: 5:30pm
Dinner: 7:00pm
Note: Water for bathing and Electricity for charging equipment is available
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Day 02: JAISALMER to SAM sand dunes
------------------------------------------------------ Day 2 starts early morning at 5:30 am, you get a whistle for morning exercise. For half an hour you run and do all sorts of stretching exercises. Here a - group leader, co-group leader and environment leader are selected for the group. This is followed by camp cleaning and morning tea.
After breakfast there is an
induction session for one hour, where you are told about the forthcoming activities and events during the whole trek and also you are advised for dos and don’ts during this whole expedition.
After the induction session you have roughly 3-4 hours of city visit. By this time you are acquainted with few of the group members and hence small groups are formed for the city visit.
During these 3 hours you can visit 4-5 tourist places in the city, namely- “Golden Fort (Jaisalmer Fort)”, “Patwon ki Haweli”, “Nathmal ji ki Haweli”, “Salim Singh ki Haweli” and “Gadisar Lake”.
Brief description of these places:
Golden Fort- Rising from the sand, the mega structure merges with the golden hues of the dessert ambience and the setting suns in its most colourful shades give it a fairy tail look. This is the only fort in the world where people still live. It consists of a palace complex and several temples and residential complexes.
Hawelis (Huge mansions)- All the three hawelis are architecture beauty.
Gadisar lake- It is an artificial lake which once held the town water supply. Surrounded by small temples and shrines, now this lake is one of the major
tourist attractions of the city of Jaisalmer. People from far off come here for boating and enjoying the sunset on the horizon.
Apart from the tourist points in the city you can also choose to take an outer city tour that includes 3 major tourist points- “Kuldhara”, “Amar Sagar” and “Lodarwa”
You report back to base camp by 1:00pm and have your lunch. By 2:00pm you have to submit your extra luggage and you are ready for the flag off.
For this day you don’t have to trek at all, you put your back packs on the bus and it will drive you 40km to the SAM sand dunes YHAI camp site. Here you have two permanent build rooms one for girls and other for boys.
Soon after the welcome drink and instruction by the camp leader you are free to go the sand dunes and enjoy. You get to see a beautiful sunset and local artists performing here and there. This place is little more crowded and you will see lot of waste thrown by the local and foreign tourists which some how ruins the beauty of the dunes….
After the sunset you return back and
have your evening soup shortly followed by dinner, blanket issue and then the campfire.
By 9:00 you retire in your sleeping bags.
Highlights of the day: ******************
- Breakfast/Lunch: Base camp
- 3 hours City Visit
- 40km Bus ride to SAM sand dunes
- Dinner: SAM sand dunes camp site.
Note: You are advised not to go for camel ride and return back to camp soon after the sunset. No electricity or water for bathing.
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Day 03: SAM to BEEDA
--------------------------------- After the usual morning activities (tea/breakfast) you also have to get you lunch packed in your lunch boxes. This is a day when you get to ride the camel. Yes! YHAI has arranged for the 13kms of camel safari which seems to be quite an attractive affair at first, later you realize how hard it becomes to sit on camel for long. We came to know that in many groups before us there were many people who preferred to walk then to sit on camel.
But our group was the hard one who’s each member stick to the camel till the last mile. Finally we were dropped a km before a village known
as “Beeda” and we walked to the village and there under the cool shadow of a big tree we had our lunch.
One of the ladies in our group got friendly with the village ladies and we were the some of the few lucky people who visited into the village and inside one of the local houses, we visited sweet Janta’s house. We met her mother-in-law and other members of the family and also took many photographs.
Soon after the village visit we were back on our foot walking to our next destination: “BEEDA camp”, it was 3km from the village.
This one of the best camps of the whole expedition as it was situated in between the sand dunes and there were no other tourists or any vendors around, so were free to go little far and spend as much time as possible before sunset there on the dunes.
The best part was that after dinner we had our camp fire on the dunes. We also had a local village artist performing his vocal instrument for us. It was an amazing experience- sitting in the cool sand under the cool moonlight listening to the folk music and then enjoying
the various presentations by our group members.
Highlights of the day: *******************
-Breakfast: SAM camp
-13kms Camel safari
-Lunch at Beeda village
-Trekking: 4kms
-Dinner: Beeda camp.
Note: It was a superb experience of sunset at this camp. There was no electricity or bating water available.
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Day 04: BEEDA to HATTAR
-------------------------------------- The next camp (Hattar) was 10 kms trek going through some of the beautiful untouched sand dunes. Officially the route is marked as 13 kms but, it seemed quite 3 kms less then that.
From this day onwards we were on foot - Trekking.
Due to the dessert region we were provided with a guide “Poonam Singh” who has a camel with him. As there was scarcity of water so 40lts of water was loaded on the camel just in case some finish off his water before the next camp.
Our camp leader walked some 500mts distance with us and bid us good buy and good luck. Soon after we left the main road we were having some of the beautiful and untouched sand dunes ahead us.
While walking the dunes with our backpacks made us realized that it is more effortful to climb
a dune then to climb a mountain ….. ;-)
But captured by the virgin beauty of the dunes and full of enthusiasm we were quickly on top of the first high dune on our way and the view from there was breathless. Crossing many such dunes we came to the little plane area and soon came to our lunch point, which was again a cool shadow of a huge tree. Temperature in the dessert area remains little high during the day and drops during the nigh, so by now we were somewhat sweating. Soon after we finished our food many of us fell asleep there.
After the long rest for an hour we stood up and started off.
It is worth mentioning that on our way we saw wild life in natural form. Many times we saw dears running far away from us; we also saw fox and many beautiful birds.
We reached at our next camp “Hattar” by 3:00pm and to our surprise there was little arrangement for bathing water also (on paid basis).
This is the best part of trekking that you come to know many limitations faced by the people living in the hard conditions such as
this one, living in the desert area where you don’t get enough water for drinking how you manage to get water for bathing.
The camp leader at this site was one of the best who made our stay very comfortable.
Highlights of the day: ********************
-Breakfast: Beeda camp
-Lunch: under the cool shadow of tree.
-Trekking: 10kms
-Dinner: Hattar camp site.
Note: No electricity but water for bathing wad available on paid basis.
It gets little colder during night in this region so you can have two blankets issued at this camp site.
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Day 05: HATTAR to DHANELI
----------------------------------------- After capturing the beautiful sunrise and nice breakfast and packed lunch we were soon on our usual business of trekking with our guide Poonam singh.
This day we didn’t had many dunes to cross except for one or two, but we did see the bare land till the far site of our eyes. Most of the time during our time we were away from any local people, there was no one even in the far off site also. It looked very deserted area. This day also we didn’t had a tough trek after walking 6-7 kms we
reached the lunch point and after lunch we walked 3 kms more to reach our Dhaneli camp site. Fortunately at this camp there was temporary arrangement for electricity. So we got the chance to re-charge our camera batteries.
This site was just a km away from the Dhaneli village and after keeping our back packs in our tents some of us photographic enthusiastic people rushed to the village (informing our camp leader there).
All the children from the village gathered around us and were insisting for their photographs to be taken. As the kids were most enthusiastic for the photos on the contrary women and some elderly people were least interested in that. So we had to take permission from them before clicking and many of then simply refused to be photographed.
After the short visit to the village we returned back for soup and dinner, followed by the favorite part of camping/trekking - the camp fire.
Highlights of the day: ******************
-Breakfast: Hattar camp
-Lunch: under the cool shadow of tree.
-Trekking: 11kms
-Dinner: Dhaneli camp site.
Note: Electricity was available, but no bathing water.
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Day 06: DHANELI to BARNA
---------------------------------------- This day was
the most tiring one. The official trek is 13 kms but it seemed no less then 16 kms. On the entire root there were very few trees and that too of very small height. After the tiring trek under the hot sun for about 8 kms we found our first big tree where got our first break and soon after we reached at our lunch point.
After lunch and few minutes of rest we again started off and finally reached our last camp site “Barna”. Here we were given Tetra packed mango juice as a welcome drink. Also the dinner here was special one- it was a famous “Dal-Bhati-Chuurma” of Rajasthan.
Here also we had sand dunes just next to our camp site. We enjoyed our last campfire on the dunes little longer this time.
Highlights of the day: ******************
-Breakfast: Dhaneli camp
-Lunch: Enroute
-Trekking: 15kms
-Dinner: Delicious "Dal Bhati Choorma" at Barna camp
Note: After walking for several kms you will find a tree to rest down. You are advised not to buy anything (like-Deer horns or say other bird wings, etc.) from any village people.
Day 07: BARNA to BASE CAMP
----------------------------------------- Being the
last day of the trip, the breakfast was special (as like dinner), it was “Aloo ke Paranthe” (Potato stuffed Chapatis).
There was no packed Lunch for today.
Soon after the breakfast and camp cleaning we boarded the bus (which was waiting for us) for the base camp. Many of us decided to sit on the roof to enjoy the ride and view. (You have to be careful while sitting on the bus, as you might bump off)
As we reported back we were handed over the feedback forms.
And lastly we were handed over the certificates of successful completion of the “National Dessert Trekking Expedition-2007”
Many people left the camp there after and few remained there as their train/flights were in the evening.
We also took this opportunity to visit outer Jaisalmer; this includes 3 major points - “Kuldhara”, “Amar Sagar” and “Lodarwa”
-Lodarwa and Amar Sagar are famous for Jain Temples, which are actually piece of fine Arts and Architecture
-Kuldhara is (now) a ruined village where around 400 families used to live some 100s of years ago. They all left the village together on same night when the king of Jaisalmer insisted to marry a girl from that
village, which was not acceptable to the villagers and they all decided to leave from Jaisalmer overnight.
After visiting these tourist points we returned back and had our lunch at base camp, picked out luggage and left for the station with all the sweet memories of; Trekking, New friends, Camel Safari, Camp fire and definitely Jaisalmer.
Facilities provided by YHAI during this event: ----------------------------------------------------------------
- Your food, water, accommodation and transportation are taken care off, from the time you report to the base camp on day one and leave from there on last day.
(These are as per the said program, if you try to divert from that YHAI is not responsible)
- As there was water scarcity so bathing facility was provided at the base camp only.
- At all the camps there were two water tanks (2000 liters) - one for washing hands/utensils and other one for drinking water.
- Electricity was available at the base camp and Dhaneli camp site (day05) only
- Each camp site has adequate stock of blankets to take care of your cold needs.
- Food at all the camps was wonderful (just like usual
Indian home food). All the meals were simple Indian vegetarian meals only.
- At all the camps following beverages were served- welcome drink, morning and evening tea, soup in evening and health drink (Borunvita) before sleep.
- Consumption of liquor or any forms of drugs was strictly prohibited.
- If you need to smoke, you have to go few yards away from camp for that. As smoking inside the camp is not at all allowed.
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Aramis
non-member comment
I am insaneley jealous (ha ha). This looks amazing. Will it be done again? Please! I want information on this dessert trip and whether it will be done in the future. Contact me. ARAMIS