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Published: February 17th 2008
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Jaisalmer and the Camel Safari
At weekends, we have the chance to get away from the monotony of the camp, and out into the wild, wild west of Rajasthan. The first weekend, we catch a bus to Jodhpur, enjoying the soothing sounds of a young Indian woman retching uncontrollably out of the window at the back, spraying innocent passers by with refreshing mists of vomit and bile. There's little to tell about Jodhpur - the buildings are all painted a lilac blue, and there's a huge fort on top of the hill overlooking the city. It has a market, restaurants, and guest houses. Nothing interesting happened whilst we were there, so I'll move on to the second weekend, in Jaisalmer.
Jaisalmer is known as the golden city, and as in Jaipur and Jodhpur, the buildings share a uniform colour, in this case a sandy yellow. Compared to the other cities visited, it's the most heavily populated with tourists, and the air is thick with French and German accents. The main attraction is yet another fort, although this time very different. Rather than one large, empty structure, Jaisalmer's fort is a living, breathing creature, home to
maybe a quarter of the city's population. Behind the walled entrance, you walk up narrow winding streets past market stalls and freakishly mutated beggars to a Jain temple and a maze of old guest houses and roof-top restaurants.
I spend two weekends here, and first with the whole group for our camel safari, the second with Kristin. On weekend one, after lunch, we drive out into the desert, to a small camp. We leave our bags in cramped huts. Ours has no toilet, and the communal one, although clearly modelled on the well-worn western design, is missing a flush, a key feature that I have no doubt the residents regret leaving out after I violate it the next morning.
We dump our stuff, then move outside to select our camels. I take this process seriously. I need a ride with an even temperment, and a relaxed, casual attitude to having a stranger of another species sitting on top of it for no good reason other than entertainment. I also don't want a horny camel, since I don't want it turning around to admire me and not looking where it's going, or even worse, fucking me to
death when I'm distracted and turn my back. I settle for a hansome devil I name The Notorious B.I.G, and he turns out to be a good choice, subjecting me to no more than minor genital bruising as he tackles the steeper climbs.
We ride out into golden dunes, an seemingly endless stretch of peaks and troughs, like something out of Laurence of Arabia. I dismount, leaving Biggie to rest a while, and walk out into sand. The winds swirl and spit, and my face is quickly covered in rough grains. I take a moment to piss and to take a picture of my shadow from on top of a dune, and then sit and watch the sunset.
Once the sun has dropped from view, we ride back to the camp for dinner. Our group has been joined by a large party, mostly consisting of Americans, and we are careful to keep to ourselves whilst dinner and dancing are served around a campfire. I sink a few beers, and sit with Kristin as everyone else leaves for bed. There are a million more stars in the desert night sky, all a million times brighter than in
the light-polluted skys of a filthy dive like High Wycombe, and it's hard to look away.
The next morning, we repeat our trip via a different route, this time to watch the sun come up. I try hard to recognise The Notorious B.I.G in the morning gloom, and make do with a lesser beast. My genitals take a further beating on the way back as we request the camels turn on the gas and take a run, but I still manage to return, alive, well and free of unwanted inter-species affections.
The final weekend in Jaisalmer, and the last before we leave camp, I spend suffering from illness. After two nights in guests houses, and being driven around on the back of motorcycles with a fever, trying ATMs without sucess (due to a marker on my card I later discover) we bump into Laurence and Alicia. They initially seem to tell us that India and Pakistan are at war, a troubling development if it were the case, and I scan the horizan for mushroom clouds. It turns out that the two countries are actually cooperating to fight terrorists near the border, part of the trouble stirred
up by the assasination of Benazir Bhutto weeks earlier. Nevertheless, people back at camp are concerned that we should all return.
Our final evening, we take a tuk-tuk to the bus station. The bus has left, so he puts his foot down, and follows it down the road, intercepting it at the next stop. Our luck is in, as it's no ordinary Indian bus, but a deluxe model, with sleeping cabins above the seats. We high five, and as the bus heads into the dusk, we pass lines of military vehicles, both on the road, and in camps behind the trees. A man in the bed above us decides to put on his ghetto blaster full volume, pumping out Hindi music, and we head off, perhaps into some war zone or scene of carnage, swaying to the strange sounds of Bollywood.
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