Sing your camel to bed

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I checked out this morning, though I will be back again tomorrow night. I think the owner was concerned that I might meet my end in the desert, leaving him out of pocket (though he did have most of my luggage in storage, which could have been flogged for a few rupees). My bill for the week was roughly $100, which for a room and 2 meals a day is more than acceptable.

My auto driver to Vijay's seemed to have come directly from the same training scheme used by New York cabbies - he happily accepted me as a passenger, then turned out to have no clue where the place was. On a fixed price trip, though, this only wastes time rather than money too.

Fortunately some other bods had turned up for the safari - two English couples, Susan and Steve, and Andy (from Andrea, I presume) and Kesh (sp?). After a short Jeep ride to the starting point, we stood around chatting while the camels were saddled up, and two camel carts were loaded with provisions, tents, etc. The camels began to look significantly larger than I had imagined, so it was with some trepidation that I took my seat on the back of Rozi (my steed for the day), put my feet in the stirrups, grabbed the rope that encircled the camel's middle, and watched as the guide gave the signal for Rozi to stand up. That part was a little lurchy, but as Rozi started to move around, the motion didn't feel too unstable and after a few minutes of getting used to it, I was able to relax and sway with the camel.

All the camels were led by their own guide, so there was no opportunity to go careering off independently. We headed along a scrubby path for about half an hour, in sunlight that I could already feel was frying my arms, before reaching a tribal village, where we stopped for chai and to look at some desert huts.

The sitting down process for the camel is more of a palaver, as it goes half way down on its front legs, then all the way down on its back legs, at which point you feel as though you're going to involuntarily somersault backwards, then the rest of the way down on its front legs. I don't think my guide was the most competent one there, or else Rozi just had a lot of attitude, as he had significant problems getting her to sit down or stand up when he wanted. In fact, when I next was attempting to get on, first she stood up when I was still a couple of yards away and then, once she'd been coaxed back down to a sitting position, she stood up immediately that she felt my bum in the seat. No hanging around for me to get my feet in the stirrups.

Village life seems very tough, not helped by the fact that they only have 8 hours of electricity per day. However it seems as though this particular village is growing in population. The lure of the cities is being resisted, as centuries of tradition have instilled a sense of community that is painful by its absence when sons or daughters try city life.

After about another hour of riding, it was time for food so we reclined on some mats that were laid out in the shade of a clump of trees, and watched as the support crew knocked up a very tasty vegetarian lunch from scratch, using gas rings. We then had another couple of hours of plodding before pitching camp for the evening.

There isn't as much animal life in the desert as I was expecting. The guide said that there were no snakes, and only a few scorpions. We saw antelope, foxes, dung beetles, various birds (including wagtails and what I can only assume were eagles), and some sort of vole-like rodent.

The desert is also very quiet. Apart from the occasional breeze and a crow's intermittent cawing, the only sounds were the guides talking, the carts creaking, and the camels farting. The latter also was the source of the only smell that tickled my nostrils.

Up close, the camel's ears and eyelashes really are things of beauty, and the feet look surprisingly soft and padded in a way that a horse's hooves don't. The camels followed the trail with little intervention from the guides, though occasionally one had to be chided for lack of focus if it decided a nearby bush looked like a tasty snack. I was told that I could buy my camel for Rs 16,000 (less than $400), which was tempting but hardly in keeping with my ethos of ultralight backpacking.

Camp was struck at a great spot for watching the sunset. The paying guests each had a tent between 2 (with me obviously on my own), though the support crew slept under the stars with thick coverlets. Once the sun had set, the temperature quickly plummeted. Soon, everyone was wearing everything they had with them, plus a blanket draped as a shawl. However it was possible to forget the chill when you looked up and saw the Milky Way streaming across the sky with a clarity you just don't get in the city. I spotted Orion, a reminder that it really is the same universe whether you're in India or in the UK, but here it was low on the eastern horizon.

As entertainment before dinner, the main guide fired a selection of riddles at us, along the lines of "There are 60 cups on a table. One falls off. 5 are left. How come?" The solution is that he is actually saying "6 tea cups". This seemed like an appropriate juncture to wheel out one of my favourite jokes about an architect having his house made backwards, but discretion won the day.

Dinner was another superb veg offering. Seeing the cooks gathering dung for the fire, before immediately launching into some chapati rolling, had no effect on my appetite. A bottle of Kingfisher provided another layer of warmth, and everyone felt it had been an excellent day, when we decided to turn in at just after 9PM.

With the main camp light extinguished, the embers of the fire glowing redly in the darkness, and the ghostly silvery shapes of the camels sitting contentedly in the scrub, the Milky Way guided us back to our tents.

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Photos

Sympathy for the camel
Why'd I get the 200 pound fat boy?

Comments

[Mj]

Re: Camel Pictures
What is this Jabe, so many camel pictures ?? Are you trying to sell it or what. You see these kinda pictures in autotrader :)))