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Arabian Nights
Aladin watch out!Well I survived, although at some points (noon to be precise) I wasn't sure if I would! I just got back from a Camel Trek in the deserts of Jaisamler. It was only a 2 day trek but that was enough for me considering the heat and the fact that camels are pretty damn uncomfortable to ride! Jaisamler is a nice little city with another fort towering over it (similar to the pictures from the last blog). Most tourists/travelers come here for the camel treks (but most come when it is not as hot as it is now). But being that it is summer there where very few other tourists here, which in some ways was nice, the hotels where cheaper and the shopping was too (at least I think it was - I got suckered into buying a bunch of stuff...which in turn is going to cost a fortune to send home).
So the trek; we started at 8:00am and took a jeep ride for about an hour out of town. The desert here is not really like what I expect. I had pictured something similar to the sand dunes at Nags Head, but in actuality most of the
My Camel
My camel, Raj desert (at least the part that we where in) is like the flats of Kansas....bare and bushy. Not the rolling sand hills that I expected (although we did eventually get to a small area like that).
Camel riding: CAMELS ARE HUGE...I mean these suckers are big (they are a lot bigger then they look in the pictures!) and riding them is most uncomfortable, I could never really get insinc (sp?) with them, so I ended up bouncing all around. They are also really wide, and after about 15 minutes of riding them my hamstrings where killing me (not to mention "my boys"). They are also nasty smell mean beasts! These things just stunk! Apparently they have a number of stomachs (similar to cows) and they regurgitate their food (all day long) (which sounds like throwing up) and then they chew the old food over and over and over again, every now and then splitting, farting, or shitting (ps. Camel farts are the worst). Chad I don’t know how much you remember from Egypt but I am sure you can agree! But besides all that I managed to have a good time, I kind of felt like Indiana Jones, running
Kids
Kids at the watering hole through the desert on my camel (I saw lots of camel toes). I made my guide call me desert man, which was also kind of fun (mark and Jason - do you remember when wanted to be called goose?).
So we walked all day, taking a long break for lunch, and then arrived in a small village around 5:00 where "cold drinks" where promised. I forgot to mention that all the water we had, got really really hot, really really fast, so you ended drinking hot water all day long, which definitely does not quench your thirst. So when we finally got to the village I was looking forward to a nice cold Fanta (orange soda). Well the "cold drinks" ended up being more like room temperature drinks (which is hot for the desert)...so that kind of sucked. Around then the sun was starting to go down so we headed to the dunes for sunset (which is where basically all the pictures I have posted are from). The dunes where pretty nice, and we set up our campsite there. I was pretty excited to be sleeping out in the desert under the stars! My guide cooked dinner and sang
Me
Me at the start of the trek....you know you like the turban! songs to pass the time. I walked around trying to get pictures of sunset, the dunes, the camels, etc. The temperature had really cooled down which was nice, but the wind had started to pick up. The night was pretty uneventful, save a few random dogs coming by to check us out (where do the dogs come from?). In the morning I woke up and saw 1000’s of tracks all around my blanket (from dung-beetles, and scorpions). And then saw my first scorpion. I made the mistake of saying “HEY LOOK, A SCORPIAN” which quickly prompted my guide to come over and killing it before I could stop him (I guess he’s not Buddhist).
So that morning we had a quick breakfast and then RAN all the way back to the road (which was about 2 hours away). The day before I had thought that riding a camel walking was uncomfortable, well a running camel was even worse.
But all and all it was a great experience, it was really fun sleeping out in the dunes. I am back in Delhi right now, going to go to the dentist tomorrow morning and then move on to another country as
camel
"that will do DONKEY" soon as the operation is complete. Thanks for all the comments on the last blog. It is good hearing from you guys.
-Chris
A special shout out to jen…just because
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anonymous
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Camel Toes
Chris, glad your tooth is better. Jennie had me worried there for a while. Nice camel toe comment. I'm sure that one won't go unnoticed! Wish you had gotten a picture of a camel spitting! - Brian