So Jaisalmer then, scorching hot desert trading post where camels, the "Ships of the Desert" rule the roads. I was struggling badly with the heat but was determined to get out into the desert on one of these beasts. I'd got a safari thrown in as part of my deal to hire Suraj back in Delhi and prepared once again to be scammed and conned into something I didn't want to do. I'd be ready for them I thought, they're not swindling me out of my 2 day safari.
Arriving in Jaisalmer, Suraj told me I had about an hour before heading off for my evening camel safari and would be back by nightfall. Ha, just as I suspected. I refused point blank saying I wanted to spend the afternoon around the town and also wanted a full 2 day camel safari in the desert. Suraj, and the hotel owner gasped in horror.
"Is too hot now, too hot! better to take just evening safari, better for you!"
I was having none of it.
"Nope, i'm doing a 2 day camel safari, either with you or with one of the companies in town, end of story, you're not conning me matey"
"But, but sir, tourists die!"
"What?"
I was adamant and eventually argued my evening safari up to a proper 2 day jaunt in the desert and Suraj went off to find some whisky.
Next morning we headed off to Kuri, a small village in the Thar Desert where I met Amar, the friendly camel driver who would take me out on his camel. We set off mid-morning and I found immediately, that camels are an extremely comfortable ride, for the 3 seconds it takes them to switch between 1st and 2nd gears. At any other pace, they are almost unbearably painful to sit on. We shuddered onward and I soon decided that camels are basically arrogant horses who've attended Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, looking down their noses at the world in blissful ignorance of just how ridicoulous they look. We found an abandoned cattle station and settled down for lunch - Dhal Baat naturally. It was now somewhere between 45 and 50 degrees again and too hot to move. We waited for the "cooler" afternoon and set off again through a couple of remote villages before finding a spot for sunset amongst rolling sand dunes looking out across the flat plains to the West. Amar went off to find some food and I sat, completely alone watching a deep orange Sun sink below the horizon. A memorable moment indeed and with no-one else in sight I relaxed on the dunes to ponder the World and wait for my food.
Then it got dark and the noises started. Once again I found myself alone in a hostile environment as night fell, and I didn't have a big stick or my multicoloured safety hat, and i'd lost my flip flops off the back end of the camel sometime earlier in the day. "Things" began flying around my head, reasonably large things. Then groans from large things in the distance, then a shriek from something close by and I was most definitely nervous again. I couldn't see anything but everything sounded close by and getting closer. Then the worst noise of all - the drums. The distant village drums which, if I remembered the old Tarzan movies, indicated the hunting party were about to set off to kill the white man. But as long as the drums are still sounding I thought, i'm ok. Then the drums stopped. No, this was the worst noise of all - complete and utter silence. Then a grunt, then a shriek and it started all over again. Where the bloody hell was Amar!
He returned with a smile and apologies, two and a half hours later... The food was at least excellent, and I settled back to sleep under the stars.
I woke in the early hours to a stunning night sky filled with stars normally obscured by a world of artifical lights. It was an amazing sight and I drifted back off to sleep happy that i'd argued successfully for a longer safari.
Waking up again at sunrise I immediately noticed a big stick only a few yards away. Useful I thought, if i'd actually been woken up during the night by whatever it was that left the paw prints around my blanket. I ate my breakfast and tried to think no more of that.
We set off again and trotted, or is it bounced, or stumbled, through a couple more villages before we headed back to the ranch for lunch, the heat finally just too much. As we made our way back I asked Amar if business was busy at the moment.
"Ha, not at all sir!" he replied.
"We have one or two tourists for evening safari only, you are only crazy man who wants 2 day camel safari in Rajasthan Summer!!"
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