(9) Camels and the french

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Day 10 - 12 (Camel Safari)
Bright and early at 6am was when we were told to meet outside the trotters shop window ready to get picked up by a jeep. I was wearing baggy black trousers with a khaki Indian tee, I completed my desert look with a headscarf wrapped round my face like a mask, with just a slit for the eyes, Simon was ready before me and was just enjoying the morning on the balcony. I ran up to him at full speed and shouted “give me all your money” expecting a little crackle of laughter or something. Instead what I hear is a large clang and then a pretty loud smash. My smile dropped as I looked at Simon: “what was that”, “An ashtray mate”. I mean, who puts an ashtray on the floor of a balcony when at any moment in the pre-dawn confusion and hype of the desert someone could run out and kick it off. Shocking. No one in the hostel seemed to notice so we just strolled out the door non-chalant.

Two Jeeps picked up us, the French couple we’d be with and 4 Aussies and took us via a little desert village to our breakfast. They whipped up the best chai we’d had yet, lots of toast, jam and biscuits and we dug in, I ate a lot because I was of the thinking that we’d not eat much in the desert. Unfortunately as I sat down to eat said breakfast the crotch of my Indian trousers well and truly gave, ‘perfect’ I thought. As we happily munched away a good 12 camels surrounded us and fell to the floor, which was unsettling considering they aren’t the nicest smelling creatures to sit with whilst you eat. After our breakfast we started getting involved, waved goodbye to the Aussies who were only doing a 2day 1night safari unlike us and introduced ourselves formally to the French couple who were doing a 3day 2night.

Camels are big. Much bigger than I thought, I’m probably 1/10th the size of a camel, it could also probably kill me with a well placed foot to the face. I couldn’t wait to get on one, Simon and Katel were first up on theirs, and Simon ripped the crotch on his Indian trousers at this point as well so there’s probably a trend there. It then became mine and Fred’s turn to mount the camel. I’d decided to keep the broken crotch pair of trousers on as I mounted the camel for the first time which was probably a smart move. The manoeuvre to get on a camel when you’re wary of crotchal tears becomes challenging (I mastered this technique with the other, bright orange, pair of trousers I’d taken with me). Rather than a simple leg swing onto the camel it becomes a process involving a carefully planned manoeuvre, raising one leg slowly until you find a good balance between straining threads at the crotch of the beautifully coloured and delicately handmade trousers, and how easy you want the mount to be. When you’re happy with the balance found, ( near 90 degrees I think) you use the other leg to lunge you sideways into the camel using your momentum against the camels curved back to straighten you up. It’s not over yet though, as you need to stay on the camel as it stands up. The powerful back legs spring into action with the front legs still folded neatly under its head, this throws you forward so you’ve got to lean back heavily. If it’s a grumpy camel it might stay like this for a while, which is annoying. When the front legs clumsily fold into action you’re finally ready to go.

Fred and Katel (from Lyon, and 30ish each) didn’t speak a huge amount of English but it was enough to joke with them which was good, they were good company for all 3 days of decisive stumbling, farting and mating calls (of the camels I should add). I quickly learnt the French for “sh*t, I’m on a camel” which is a sentence I probably overused. I also tried to form broken and gender confused sentences with any French word which I remembered from year 7, 8 and 9 which they found encouragingly entertaining.

After 2 hours of rocking slowly from side to side, your thighs and arse begin to really hurt. After 3 days the pain was numbing, I think my body was actually trying to prepare myself for an amputation as I couldn’t feel the ground under my ass or legs when we sat down for food after several hours of walking. I can’t believe I’d thought I would get hungry in the desert. I’ve never eaten so well, 1 big breakfast of chai, toast, jam and biscuits followed by a lunch of freshly prepared chapatti’s and stew of vegetables, Dinner was once again chapatti and vegetables but dinner involved a healthy serving of rice. Our guides (Neru - 35 and Baba (old.) kept refilling our plates until we couldn’t actually eat any more at all.

On our travels we saw an oasis, a few shepherds with over 60 or so sheep, huge eagles soaring overhead, a few gazelle, a few meatless ribcages and skulls scattered around, a broken fort where I broke Simons sunglasses whilst observing a vast, desolate plain around us, we also drank desert whisky which was fruity, destructive and foul, sat under huge elm trees to relax during the hottest parts of the day, listened to one of the camels letting out a low belching bellow from its mouth whilst dropping its huge liver-like tongue out its mouth covered in foam (we called that one rabies), enjoyed a night on small sand dunes, after watching a stunning desert sunset and feeling the heat go with it, we also enjoyed a night on huge sand dunes about 70km south of the Pakistan border where we drank ice cold kingfisher which we buried, lost, and finally found again in the sand, and enjoyed a surreal night on a 30 degree sand dune under thousands of pinprick stars, you could even just see the ring of the milky way.

On our first night we watched huge dung beetles (the size of humans as Nathan would say) scuttle around aimlessly, we woke up to find the tracks absolutely everywhere which was fairly hilarious, they have absolutely no idea where they’re going as they walk around. A smaller beetle randomly bit me on the second night which made me decide to punish it by burying it in sand, watching it escape and then burying it again a few times. Muahahaha.

On the second day we were all relaxing in the shade of an elm tree and the sorrow of our leg and arse muscles when two little Indian kids came up to us, I’m sure these kid’s will be fun and friendly right? “school pen?” “schoolpen schoolpen”? “baksheesh? (tip)” Even in the effing desert we get harassed. That was pretty annoying.

Nowhere near as annoying as our visit to a village of 600 Muslims 2 hours later with at least 100 little kids raining down chorus’s of innocent calls of “hello, goodbye”, “this is camel” followed by not so innocent calls of “schoolpen schoolpen, SCHOOLPEN”, “Baksheesh, money, baksheesh”. It was genuinely very annoying being truly surrounded and harassed whilst your camels drink from their well. I found slight entertainment in getting a few kids to repeat “this is guinea pig” whilst pointing at a camel.

For a good 5 Minutes it was just me and Neru left in the village as he waited for some supplies from the village and as I swapped the batteries in our phones as his had run out and he needed to contact the manager to keep him updated on where we were. During these 5 minutes one cheeky little kid huddled in a group of older kids to do something offensive or malicious - I could tell. As he pushed through the 5 deep crowd around me and my camel he received the filthiest look I could muster which sent him packing, It was the kind of look that Luke would give me if I ever tried to pick up the tv remote to change the channel during a Newcastle match. It’s not a happy look to say the least. You might think that was a little over the top but a rock had solidly struck my calf not 10 minutes before and I suspected that little kid. After I was back up on my camel, the pips of racism hidden by smiling masks suddenly disappeared, I took off my headscarf to readjust it, and as I combed my fingers through my hair (as I do, ‘cos I’m camp) they all cheered which made me laugh. It’s amazing the differences in behaviour these kids showed when I was in a position to give and then when I wasn’t. I left the little village to friendly choruses of “bye bye” secretly wishing that my camel had kicked one of the really annoying ones in the face... I joke I Joke...

I was glad to get out of that strangely racist, prejudiced desert village that’s for sure. Unfortunately, to catch up with the others we had to run on the camels. Now that is not a pleasant experience, I have no idea how a man can not feel excruciating pain after more than 20 steps. As the camel runs it throws you up in the air, a flight that lasts a good half a second, or it would if the camels’ body didn’t slam into your crotch just as you start to descend, sending the full force of a camel leg through the saddle and into the crotch. This is repeated probably 3 times a second. Resulting in very sore testicles. Good fun, thanks for that Neru - I get a stone thrown at my calf, receive some abuse from a swarm of little kids (albeit mostly innocent) then proceed to enjoy the experience of a camel kick to the crotch.

Another thing people say about the desert but that I didn’t believe to the extent they say it is how cold the mornings are, they are very cold, very very cold in fact. On the last day it stayed cold somehow even when the sun was directly above us at about 11am. Sore legs and arse combined with the worry of hypothermia and sunburn leads to a fun 3 hours.

Even with the above things I had a great time away from chaotic India, 3 days in the life of a desert nomad, tranquil and beautiful scenery ranging from hard drought ridden dirt to soft sandy dunes.
One thing I managed to watch for a while was whenever a strong gust of wind persisted at a sand dunes face, it caused spiralling clouds of fine sand to spray off the crest, tumbling and floating until it stopped, likely on an area which would slowly build up to become a new dune. It was fascinating to see a dune slowly collapse on itself and change shape with strong winds, the concave side of the sand dune gets a dent in it through which huge amounts of sand, mainly from the slowly collapsing crest above it, corkscrew and spiral, picking up the momentum of funnelled wind and flying off to another dune.

I probably explained it badly but regardless it was really fun to watch and to interfere. Or maybe I’m just easy to entertain. That night we’d made our bed (from a lot of blankets) on a medium sized dune overlooking a huge one and where the sun would rise from. In Hindsight it was probably a little bit steep as I woke up in the morning to find that Simon’s bed had slipped about 5 meters down the dune. Ha.
We met a couple of Canadians on our last day in the desert and we went back to Jaisalmer with them through the hypothermic sunshine until the jeep picked us up. Jeep + Desert + fast = Fun. The jeep driver had a wedding to get to and so was driving like a maniac, he used the horn as if it was his oxygen to breathe and with that contrast to our surreal, sore and tranquil 3 days we were brought firmly back into reality. We managed to get a bus with the Canadians back to Jodhpur on the same day. That bus was heavenly as it was travel which didn’t involve any sore muscles, foaming tongues or sand. The journey went quickly due to a combination of Genius playlists and my fake copy of Shantaram, which I persisted in reading even though the only reachable reading light was in a painful position; it is such a good book. We arrived in Jodhpur and went back to the Govind Hotel. Lying in that bed it was like the past 3 days hadn’t happened at all. Really strange feeling.

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Comments

[Dad]

Brilliant
Youe best piece yet. Very entertaining. Excellent writing quality. Sorry to hear about the trousers. I was very impressed with the desert attire. I think it's time you became a travel author!