Camel days

Since I last wrote on the blog, or "blogged" as the kids call it now days, many things have happened. I spent 2 days trekking through the desert on the hump of a camel. I have explored more antique forts of Rajastan ans I have also caught a case of the New Delhi belly. People here say it happens to everyone, but I didn't think I would get it so soon after being here. I wasn't taking any steps to prevent either. I have been eating at all the local restaurants and on the street. I shake hands with about 50 people day and I haven't used the hand sanitizer that I brought either. So it was bound to happen. I'm not sure if it was caused by the vegetable corfu, or the delicious tali I had the day before, but when it hit me it was intense. The evacuations started at around 4am, with the stern, and the bow wasn't too far behind. At one point there was a massive evacuations and all lifeboats needed to be manned at the same time. By 8am all the lifeboats had been filled and now it was just time for survival. The seas were rough that day my friend. The heat was intense and eating and drinking was a difficult task to accomplish while on the life rafts. during the midday I took a nice long nap, but it seemed like I was hallucinating with kids screaming and loud Hindi music in the background. By that evening I had recovered enough to eat a little food, and by the next day I was rescued and was able to complete my journey up to Jodhpur, even though I was slightly weakened by the previous events.

Jodhpur was the next stop on the journey, it's a popular destination on the tourist route, because of its fort that towers over the city and for its color, if you look at the city from the fort above, it looks like most of the old city is painted Indigo blue. Most of the building are 500 years old, very square and angular. It is a city that looks like an MC Escher drawing when you look down on it. With the crooked stairs and everything. The fort is massive, and it towers over the city. It was built in 1459 by the mughal Emperor, there is a nice museum inside that has reenactments of what the rooms look like and it has a bunch of old swords and weapons. The city its self was beautiful and quiet when you were with in the blue, old city. You could walk around with out being hassled, say hi to the kids and be relaxed, but as soon as you stepped into the market streets which were a lot busier it was like taking your life in your hands. There were cows, rickshaws, bikes people, and the streets were about 10 feet wide. So I enjoyed jodhpur, when I was wondering the side streets, but then it got too hectic.

Jasailmar is the next stop on the journey, it is another city that is on the well trodden tourist path. People travel very from any where to get to the center of camel and desert tourism in India. A man said 80% of income in this city is from tourism. There is a lot to like. It's small it's an easy city to get around on foot. There is another amazing, old fort that is worth a look and it's a cheap city, and it doesn't hurt that it's the Amsterdam of India with its legal marijuana. The fort is very similar to the one on Jodhpur, except the one here in Jasailmar actually has a few thousand people living in it. Pretty surprising for a fort that was began in the 12th century. It has a nice museum that I didn't visit, guesthouses, restaurants, hotels and travel agents. It just seems bizarre to have so may people in here, it's like living in a museum. The guidebook say it's not good to stay inside because all the stress it puts on the ancient structure. But I did anyway, the views are tremendous, and a room only cost 100 rupees. (2 dollars)

The main reason people travel all the out her is to take part in a little camel adventure, and I did just that, but I found out I came here a week to early, next weekend there is a camel festival, complete with camel tug of war, a Mr Desert contest, as well as a mustache contest.
I signed up for the 3 day, 2 night "safari." I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this little trip, I had heard good and bad. The main reason for the trip was to get way from the city and into the desert for a little camping and quiet. I guess riding a camel is just what you have to do if you want to get out into the desert. When we all showed up there was a nice group of 10 tourists. 7 Americans actually, which was a change. But after talking to them all, I was the only one doing the second night. Everyone else was headed back the next morning. To answer a few of your question, Yes, sitting on a camel is uncomfortable, especially going down hill, their saddles aren't like a horses, which is nice and wide, these saddle don't leave you with much room to wiggle. So the groin is feeling it, along with the rest of the inner thigh. No, the desert out there is not that attractive, they take you to the nice dunes for camping, but in between it's just shrub land and a few abandoned fields. It was nice to have the guides. There was 8 of them for the 10 of us, so cooked dal, chapati and rice for all the meals, while all the guests sat in the shade. The real entertainment came at night when there was some Camel Sutra performed. That's what the guides called it when they tried to get one of the female camels pregnant. It was a noisy performance and you weren't sure if you should really be watching, but we all thought it's something we may never see again so we watched for a few minutes, then gave them their privacy.

The second day was a Little different, it was me, my camel, and the guide, Adam. he was a local villager with 2 kids. He didn't speak much English, so there wasn't much to discuss. He did take me around show my some nice dunes and a village. We took a nice 4 hour lunch break in the shade of a nice tree. I tried to help cook lunch, but there wasn't much I could do, there was only one knife, one pot, one fire, so he just told me to hangout in the shade, and I didn't really have a problem with that. After the siesta we road on a little farther until the next dunes, where we made camp next to a bunch of Koreans on one night safari. We repeated the activities of last night, he cooked up a nice rice dinner while I took in the sunset on the dune with my cold beer I bought from the local village boy who schleps them around to the tourists. After that we sat around our little fire until bed. The next morning we got up early and had a silent trek through the early morning back to the jeep that was waiting to take me back to Jasailmar.