Chill

Jaisalmer Desert Festival.
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So the idea of a camel safari sounds utterly touristy but its pretty chill for a few days to escape the crowds of the cities. A nice family i was staying with in bikaner hooked me up with a relative of his here and the guy organizes this safari with me and two others. we set off with a camel each plus our guides and a few days provisions. the first morning i couldnt control this damn thing at all. lazy and slow. by the afternoon the guides had, in an extremely bad mix of english, hindi, and a little french we figured out how to rock. got these things moving. lunched in the hot hours and galloped across the dunes to finish the evening. full moon. hot chai, simple food, fire. there was enough light to read that night and was most certainly enough for a midnight ride. repeat for 4 days.

Desert Sunset....near the Pakistani border
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all in all a sore butt isnt such a bad price to pay for a little peace and quiet after the mayhem of Bombay.

after jaisalmer im moving thru the rest of Rajasthan until Tim arrives from the states and ross back from sri lanka.

i'm reading a pico iyer book right now called four seasons in kyoto (mixed with a little hesse and foucault and 3 olives). there is a quote i would like to leave you with that has held my mind for the past few days.

"i remember this one zen teacher told me soon after i arrived that 'the appeal of zen to many foreigners is like a mountain wrapped in mist. Much of what Westerners saw was just the beautiful mist: but as soon as they began really doing zen they found that its essence was of the mountain: hard rock'...and so we wandered on..."