I've been through the desert on a camel with no shame

Inside the Jaisalmer fort
see all photos »

Part 2 of Rajasthan

The next stop was Jaisalmer, the furthest west I went in Rajasthan. Jaisalmer is really and truly out in the desert, a small town with another huge fort behind it.  This fort is unique because, besides having a phenomenal palace and some of the most exquisite Jain temples in India, people actually live and work in this fort's tiny winding alleys. I stayed in a guesthouse in the fort's ramparts and looked out over the city from my windowseat. From up there, the city very quickly faded into empty scrub desert.

Me and Mr. Lalu

Looking out onto Jaisalmer city from the fort
see all photos »

The camel safari business is big in Jaisalmer, and it's easy to get swept up in the idea of traipsing through the sand on a gentle goofy beast. My original plan to just take a jeep ride out to see some sand dunes became a half day camel ride, then a whole day, then an overnight...the hiker and camper in me couldn't resist.  And my day with Mr. Lalu was really fun, as we walked through empty desert to remote villages, ate food cooked over a campfire by the camel drivers, and Lalu-ji entertained me with classic camel pursuits like farting, and regurgitating food into a large mucousy sack that he inflated from inside his mouth. Don't get me wrong, Lalu and I got along famously - he was the biggest and fastest camel in the bunch and I could actually control him so we had fun running up and goosing the other camels.

Village home decorated for the upcoming Holi festival
see all photos »

The strange and bizzare animal excitement came later in the day. Our group was really fun, people from several different countries mostly travelling on their own so we got stuck together and had a blast. But there was one guy from Argentina fit the meat-loving South American stereotype to a T by refusing to eat the vegetables the camel guys were making.  Then, during our post lunch siesta, some goats wandered by and he started joking about how yummy one of them would taste. He went from joking, to comically chasing the goats around, to joking with the camel drivers about how much it would cost to buy one, to negotiating with them to buy one, have them skin it and cook it over the fire!  None of us thought they'd go through with it, but later on when we went to a village, the Argentinian had the camel drivers discreetly purchase a goat, and when we were all up on the dunes watching sunset, they killed it, butchered it, and started cooking away. And let me tell you, not much was wasted.  Luckily, there were 2 campfires so those of us not partaking could serenely sip our vegetable stew by the other one, but to glance over and see a circle of people, flames licking at their chins, gnawing away at goat bones in the middle of the darkness was rather....eerie.  Now I know how our veggie friends Jeff and Seeta felt when we speared, cooked, and tore into fresh crabs while hiking in Canada.

Gotta be able to steer your camel around these bad boys.
see all photos »

The dunes were pretty cool, and the stars we saw while lying at the top were incredible. The moon didn't rise until late, so the only other light was a really faint glow from the military bases at the Pakistan border, which were only a few km away.

Got back into town the next day and checked out the sights. As I was wandering in and out of small craft shops in the old city, I met a great woman from Holland who was buying bulk weavings to sell at home to support her travelling habit. She had been invited to dinner by a woman who she met on the street selling skirts, and asked me along. Just a few yards off the streets of Jaisalmer, was a dirt road with small one room bamboo huts with dirt floors. No electricity, sewer, etc. This is where many of the camel drivers lived. Madu had gotten divorced in a neighboring state, something that was very looked down upon. She came to Rajasthan and learned traditional dancing to make money. Now she is older and sells skirts to support her 4 kids.

Camels and dunes
see all photos »

She cooked us veggies and chapati over a coal fire outside while the kids had lots of fun teaching us dances from school and using my digital camera to take pics of themselves posing as bollywood stars. The smallest, a 4 year old!, offered us pann nuts to chew (this time got a small buzz-head spin). Then we went inside and Madu pulled out a large sack of clothes (probably the same ones she sells on the street, makes you think about all the places the clothes i bought had been). She danced for us to the songs of her kids, in the light of one candle in the corner.  Nothing can beat a special treat like that.

My group watching the sunset from the top of a dune
see all photos »

My last stop was in Udaipur, a small, romantic city around a series of lakes. Udaipur was the site of filming for the movie Octopussy (picture Bond riding an alligator towards a palace floating on a lake) and they dont let you forget it - every guest house shows the movie every night! Dont have many pics of this beautiful place because I was running around getting ready to -sniff- leave India.

On the streets of Jaisalmer, a guy walked up to me, looked me in the eye, and said, "You have good karma, but you think too much". Maybe he said that to everyone, but he just walked away, no pitch for a meditation course or a coffee date or anything. And it was much better than any fortune cookie message Ive ever gotten. So I decided to take it to heart, to trust my heart and my instincts even more as I continue on this trip.