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Published: January 7th 2015
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On the train to Delhi January 3 2015
If you had asked me in 2014 when it was permissible to to wear socks with sandals I would have confidently said "Never". Now I have travelled by camel across the Thar desert through arctic cross winds (well it felt like the wind was coming from there!) I am happy to concede this is one exception.
We had awoken on New Years Day to find a fine mist blowing around our bush windbreak and slowing down the work of the sun. We were toasty warm where we were, well sheltered and in sleeping bags and smothered in blankets. The sun did its best and the wind remained persistently cold during our 2 hour trek back to Barani, our village base. Socks with our sandals was the only solution. You needed to cover whatever you could because the top of a camel by its very nature is exposed to the elements.
This cold snap, the coldest day in Jaisalmer in three years, had hit us on the last day of our three day and two night safari with Kamal's Private Camel Tours (see Facebook or
TripAdvisor). It was a fantastic experience and would best described as an adventure. The format is very simple: you ride camels, eat and sleep in the desert. You see the odd village and shepherd otherwise it is just desert. We were luck to be joined by Marie and Matthieu, two young French travel writers (www.voyageadeux.org) who were exploring India for four months.
Let take the camels first. They are beautifully graceful creatures and seemed quite passive. All are male because females cause arguments and it is much easier to strap a saddle on a male apparently. Once in the saddle on the sitting camel you lean back as it gets up first with its back legs and then the front.
When they loped along at walking pace they are quite comfortable. There are no stirrups and it was most comfortable to cross your ankles across the back of the camel's neck. We clearly got too blasé. On the second day Matthieu's camel got spooked by a blanket blowing up in the wind and bucked him off. He landed cat-like on both feet. Dan just ahead of him was not so lucky. His camel bucked
A chapati making lesson at lunch
Marie and Matthieu are wearing the red and yellow scarfs
Sambu in the centre is leading the lesson
Dan is praying his will be good! sharply as well and Dan was on the floor before he knew it, winded by the fall. When he got his breathe back it was clear his shoulder was not right. On our return to Jaisalmer the following day it was confirmed by X-ray what we had suspected; he had a cracked collar bone.
What is it with Drummonds and India and collarbones? Twenty eight years ago almost to the day Jeremy had broken his collar bone at Korvalam in Kerala playing in the waves. It is not pleasant for the first few days as Dan is discovering.
All this happened close to our second day camp and Dan and I walked this last part. The following day in the arctic winds the guides doubled us up on a calm soul call Caro or "Blackie". Dan bravely 'got back on the "horse"'.
The real star of the show is the desert and not the camels. Most of the Thar desert is undulating hummocks dotted with bushes. Flat areas are cultivated with millet in the years the monsoon comes. Every so often there are groups of classic sand dunes being slowly blown
South by the prevailing wind. Goats and sheep flocks graze where they can. Old shepherds joined our camp at night - they could smell hot free food and a friendly camp fire. Two shepherds, Atam and Sobji, stayed with us all night on the first evening.
Wildlife is abundant throughout although not always visible. The flocks of sheep and goats seem to wander at will as do cattle and donkeys. Wild camels roam the National Park. On the second morning it took along time to retrieve my camel because he had been chasing a wild female despite having his front legs tied together. We saw desert fox and antelopes. There were tracks in the sand of mice, rabbits, and possibly gerbils (small front feet and larger back feet).
The raptors were magnificent. A group of vultures landed near our lunch spot and the last did not budge until I was within 15 metres. Eagles floated above. Groups of thrush like birds (ideally camouflaged with faun strips) visited our camp each morning and evening. The hopped along the ground in threes and fours happy to come close and darting in and out of bushes.
With the clear skies the sun set as a classic Indian orange orb and the moon rose. The guides and shepherds were fascinated by the Google Sky map app I had on my phone which could pick out the constellations and planets. Each night we camped in the shelter of the photogenic sand dunes. Our tracks disturbed the uniform ripples on the surface of the sand only to be obliterated by the wind in a matter of hours. On one we found the dried skeleton of a wild camel.
Our guides Abhey and Sambu lit a fire as soon as we reach camp. The tinder dry bush wood lit directly from a match. Marsala chai was first on the menu. They then cooked up a vegetable curry and finished by making chapatis from scratch. On New Years Eve we splashed out and had goat which they cooked up with a splendid marsala. Kamal also brought fireworks, gin, whisky and local cane rum so there was quite a party. Dan hung in there although his shoulder was sore.
The tour company was very much a family affair. Kamal Singh, 28, was the front
Surveying the horizon
The shawl has been a godsend
The kurta is distinctly old fashioned man. The tour started from his village 40 km towards the Pakistan border South East of Jasailmer. Abhey, 50, was his Uncle and Sambu, 19, his youngest brother. Abhey's son had driven us out from Jaisalmer in the jeep. Kamal's other brother was out leading a twenty five camel safari. They owned some camels (they are not cheap) and rent others. Amongst themselves they speak Marwani the local language. Their spoken English was perfectly good for most conversation.
It was beautiful to watch Abhey and Sambu ride the camels. Apparently they start at 5 and are expert by 9. They were great cooks too and happy to impart their knowledge of the desert. Abhey could just remember the war with Pakistan in 1971. He remember the Pakistan planes fly incursions over the border and had been scarred on his leg by phosphorus from a shell.
Once back at the village Kamal made sure Dan got the medical care he needed (there is not much you can do for broken collarbone once you have the diagnosis) before dropping us off at our guest house, Mystic Jaisalmer (www.mysticjaisalmer.com). The first night we had been there we
had camped in tents on the roof and very much enjoyed the low key and friendly atmosphere. With the cold wind we opted for a dorm room. And then we could quickly remove our socks from our sandals!
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Rajesh Sen
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Jaisalmer Tour
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