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Published: April 1st 2010
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Riding on our Enfields, we made an impromptu trip to the western corner of Rajasthan from the capital, Delhi. We had no itinerary drawn, no destination point; we were just looking forward to the colourful land of Sand and an amazing road trip.
The first night was for Pushkar and the first stop, the holy temple of Lord Brahma. The temple is the only ancient temple dedicated to The Creator, being point of the ‘Creator - Sustainer - Destructor’ trio of Hindu mythology. Moving on towards our destination, we enjoyed riding the mellow roads of Rajasthan.
The weather was on our side with the sun shining benevolently upon; still we didn’t have everything our way. Abhay’s bike started breaking down again and again and we had hardly covered 200kms from Pushkar, we decided to call it a day.
We stopped at a very small village, having ghee-loaded dinner at a ‘dhaba’. After speaking to the village pradhan/ village Headman (only for safety purposes) we were allowed to stay there for the night. Since we were carrying our own camping gear we found a place to park our rides overlooking a sand dune, pitching in for the night we lit ourselves
a little borne fire and crashed!
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On top for ‘to do list’, the next day was getting the bike fixed at the next town. Lunch at Pokhran was the second on the list. Pokhran a desolate wasteland, where the nuclear test was conducted by India, was not a pleasing place to the eye and we started having second thoughts of what lied ahead, but all that was going to change.
A small village, Sam, lays 40 kms ahead of Jaisalmer, this place claims to have the most effulgent sand dunes of the Thar. It had gotten dark so we parked our bikes in a safe place, arranged two camels and headed out for our very own night safari, carrying our gear with us which the camels didn’t seem to mind! Let me not forget to introduce you to our camels, one was Hritik Roshan(an Indian actor) and the other had an international appeal as he was named Michael Jackson…
Into the moonlit desert we were dropped off nearly 5kms away from civilisation, into the desert with some firewood, pitched in there and our campfire was up again. The chilly wind didn’t stop us from enjoying the star
studded sky, I couldn’t stop myself from gazing at the sky and realised ‘what a luxury to see the stars!’, how polluted our cities have become one can’t even see the moon clearly. This was nothing like I had seen before. Our camels arrived with our guide ay 7 am, I was reluctant to come out from the warmth of my sleeping bag but just as I stepped out of the tent my eyes witnessed one of the most lovely spectacles I had ever seen.
The sun rising above the horizon beaming at the sand dunes, as the colour of the land had turned golden my tiredness vanished instantly. We packed up the stuff and rode into the desert, but time not on our bikes but on the ship of the desert; The Camel. We headed inside the desert national park which spreads over a large area of the Thar dunes. There we spotted a lot of wild life from herds of deers to the desert fox and the wild ass, but the most interesting creature didn’t have its feet on the ground. A king vulture, with its wings spread out, the length of which btw was almost
5′ and a half feet. It soared over our heads, a very elegant animal but it did give us the creeps.
By the afternoon, after stopping at several intervals and covering over almost 20 kms we spotted another village (amazing as to how people are spread all over). After consulting our guide (who was just another local), we gave refuge to our backs which were yelling in pain from the humpy ride. We arranged food for us and treated ourselves with chaanch which was a stress buster from the overhead sun. By evening we got out of the reserve and found another place for spending the night which was further into the desert than last night, we had covered almost 40 kms on the camel that day so without wasting much time we pitched in and dozed off.
The next day brought the most effulgent experience of our tour, we were picked up and brought at the spot where our bikes were parked and we headed out further towards the the Line of Contol (LOC as most would know it). Many patches of the road were covered in sand, all thanks to the shifting sand dunes, we did
have some trouble crossing them on the heavy bikes but we were determined to move on.
Crossing the Indra Gandhi Channel and crossing many small villages we were now riding on a way which didn’t have a fully constructed road. We finally made a stop at the BSF post and found out that we were only 20kms from the LoC and weren’t allowed to go any further.
So at noon we headed back till a crazy idea struck my head, we stopped near a village and headed out into the open sands on foot. Dune after dune we walked tirelessly over the huge heaps of sand and it got better and better till a point came where one could see sand dunes on the horizon in every direction which met the eye. The sand was untouched with ripples on it due to the wind; the only thing which was out of place for the scene was out a foot trail to be followed back.
The sun set was as magical as the sunrise. They say Plato used to cry watching the sun set; I say if he was to come here he would spend a lot of
evenings crying. We headed back with the torch leading our way back on our foot trail which had now getting vague and looked like pug marks, but we did manage to get back around 10 to Sam.
This night was our last in the Thar so we decided to take our adventure to the next level, we got ourselves drooped 10kms into the desert with some firewood and our sleeping bags only. That night we didn’t have a tent over our heads and we were so glad that wood was flammable, we fixed ourselves into our sleeping bags and gazed into the stars for hours. Now I know why star gazing is an obsession for many!!
Taking the last glimpse of the golden land we bid farewell to our tour guide Karim (who couldn’t read or write but had as fluent English as ours) and Hritik Roshan and Michael Jackson, we headed on the long journey back home.
The day I got back home, I noticed that I had sand in my shoes, while I was pouring it out the experience of the divine sands which seemed so unstained from corruption and the thrills of the adventure I had come
back from flashed in front of me, and I was wondering if I would to ever look for a place where I could find complete peace which place would it be? And im sure you know what my answer…..but I would need an uninterrupted supply of water:.
Dushyant Singh Kushwaha
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