The Golden City

Carrie and Mini-Me

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This is the western most city in Rajasthan, just a few kilometers from Pakistan. (The  proximity was noticable only by the regular patrols of jet fighters flying overhead :).  The old city is entirely within the fort walls and this fort houses 2,000 people.  This was our first real taste of the caste system.  Only those of a certain caste are allowed to live or hold shop within the fort...those of lower castes are not even allowed to display wares outside of their homes because the upper castes will rip them down. 

We had the hardest time getting around the tiny cobblestone streets because they were flanked with mean mean cows/bulls who did not like us.  One hit me in the gut with his big horns and a few more menacing looking ones scared us off the road and into shops. Despite that, we did a lot of wandering around here and felt it was a charming town despite the vicous man eating cows.  We did more shopping here than we intended but well worth it I must say.  We bought some real fancy bedding for ourselves here.  We also attempted some pizza here, bad idea! 

Us

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Nareesh (driver) told us a jeep would pick us up the next morning at 9am for our camel desert safari but we felt like he was probably full of shit.  Turns out he was!  The next morning no jeep.  We all walked to the "camel guys" store and he and Nareesh had some kind of nasty argument that ended in us being told to come back at 2 and they would drive us to the desert rendevous point.  We did some more shopping to kill the time :)

At 2 we headed to meet the camel man who looked very angry.  He put us in the back of his jeep and took us on a horrifying 40 minute drive through the desert.  Come to find out, when we arrived, the other people that were there had been driven by their drivers and the reason why they were fighting is because Nareesh just didn't want to drive us so he pawned us off on the camel guy who took us in his personal vehicle.  Grrr....Nareesh the anti-driver.

Morning in the desert

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But, who cared we were going on camel safari!  So we mounted up and were guided through the desert by some locals.  Carrie's "driver" was about 10 although he claimed to be 13 and looked like her "mini me"  Eventually, instead of leading the camel on foot, he hopped on the back of the camel and made Carrie stear while he sang her songs.  I had an old man who took his job to protect me from my angry camel very seriously.  I appreciated him.  We loved riding camels!  It was so much better than elephant or horse.  They do, however, fart ALOT and they make mean noises that are scary.  Carrie had a perfect camel and they got along very well.  We rode to the sand dunes and watch the sunset.  We also saw a lot of dung beetles which was very exciting for me.  We rode back to the compound of thatch roofed-adobe huts where we were staying and had a delicious buffet dinner.  We rode with four lovely people and we all ate dinner together and laughed a lot.  We retired to our hut and set up the mosquito net...now we know there are no mosquitos in the desert but there are things like scorpions and dung beatles.  It took the edge off.  We certainly didn't sleep well since it was donkey mating season and there were quite a few donkey orgies taking place all night. 

Sunset over Thar desert

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The next morning we got a ride back to town with one of the other drivers and his old German guy.  We were going to tell Nareesh that we wanted to head out for the next town that morning but when we got back we found out he was in the hospital.  One of his friends took us to the hospital to see him (I think to prove he was really there..as if we didn't believe him.)  This was the most horrifying hospital on the planet and he was hooked up to an IV and writhing in pain.  We got dozens of conflicting stories about his condition.  Turns out he had "Delhi belly" from the contaminated water.  We spoke to our contact in Delhi and he said he would hook us up with our third driver, however, Nareesh had miraculously healed himself by 8pm and decided he was fit to drive us.  There were a lot of frustrating phone calls back and forth to Delhi regarding who was fit enough to drive us but in the end Nareesh stayed on as our driver.

Sunrise over Thar desert

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The next morning we headed out.