camel safari!

Going on camel safari in the Thar desert was definitely a trip highlight for both Vasae and I and it was a blast!  Experiencing the desert, riding camels, sleeping in sand dunes, seeing the sunrises and sunsets... it all rose to our expectations.  Ever since we started dreaming up this crazy journey, we've been talking about our plan for the camel safari.  We both intended on buying girly, sparkly head scarves and basically pretending to be Indian princesses for the duration of the safari.  We considered full on costumes, makeup, gold jewels and the like but our limited budget and better senses lead us to keep things simple.

And while you may be considered absolutely nuts for wanting and choosing to go to the desert in Rajasthan (northwestern region of India) in summertime, we went ahead and braved the heat.  On our longest day on the camels we basically parked it under a tree in some shade for hours in order to try and beat the heat.  That's really all you can do, is nothing.  It gets so hot in India that the only options for activity center around sitting, napping, chatting, and maybe drinking tea.  That's really what Indians do- its kind of amazing to see how they can and do nap EVERYWHERE. And now I don't blame them because I understand your body simply cannot handle anything else.

Organizing the camel safari was a terrible ordeal.  We were hassled, bamboozled and lied to from the second we arrived in Jaisalmer (literally it started before we got off the train and even into the station) Its such a big money-maker in the tourism industry that people pretty much attack you to try and convince you to go with their company.  Luckily we did our homework beforehand and knew how much we should be charged a day... only tough part was finding someone to do it.  After a long, exhaustive search we found the right tour group and price.  And also very lucky we had 2 new friends to come along for the ride.  We picked up one wonderful Irish girl and a great guy from the Philippines to complete our group of 4 for the trip.

sunset on camel safari

The trip itself was hilarious.  I had no idea just how huge and ridiculously tall camels are.  It took awhile to get used to riding them but they make it entertaining as they make some of the strangest sounds I have ever heard in my life.  They're nice animals, pretty laid back but kind of bitchy, they just don't like to do anything they don't want to do.  Our camels were all pretty well behaved... Rocket had a temper and had to be tied up so he wouldn't run off, Michael Jackson made noises and expressions that made us laugh every time, Vasae's camel, Robert was pretty low key but apparently is known for running away (luckily that didn't happen).  And my camel, Raja (yes, that's right. mine was named after Jasmine's tiger from Aladin/ I was officially a princess) was extremely laid back and slow.  So all in all it was smooth sailing.

Most interestingly, our "guides" for the majority of the time were two fifteen year olds (they could have been twelve, we don't know).  We couldn't believe it at first when these kids showed up and started running the show.  They assured us that the real, "big guide" was coming but he managed to only appear during meal times- he would just surface from out of the middle of nowhere/ the desert, cook the meal, chat a bit, adjust something on a camel and disappear back into the desert.  Luckily we visited their village so we knew he wasn't wandering the desert in between meal times.  The teen team did a great job guiding us/ they let us do whatever we wanted so we have no complaints on the matter :)

After the safari we had time to enjoy the tiny town of Jaisalmer and the ancient desert fort that's built there.  Now we're onto another overnight train to the next town, Jodhpur!