Only a few people are interested in coming to India, and most of them come from November to May. So when we told people in Toronto that we will be traveling in India from May to October they said we were crazy. First, we would experience India's Summer with temperatures as high as 48°C, and then the monsoon would come. In an act od bravery--and stupidity--we decided to reject all advice and head right into the desert.
Jaisalmer, a city of 70 thousand people, 150 km. or so East of Pakistan, is a magical, Medieval place, literally built out of sand. There are no trees, there are no rivers, there are no plants growing on walls; there is no vegetation anywhere--except from the bautifully ornate sand-stone carvings that display intricate organic configurations and that appear to cover the whole city.
Our hotel room, which took us a couple hours to find, was beautiful. It was in a 300-year old house and had a haveli feel. It also had the most amazing balcony window! When the hotel owner showed us the room we suspected he did not know the difference between a window and a balcony; what he kept refering to as a balcony looked like a shuttered window. We opened it, and we realized that our room contained the most wonderful, tiny, sand-stone engraved alcove balcony, in which one could not stand without hitting one's head.
We spent pur first three days in Jaisalmer reading in our balcony, going to the fort for mango juice and playing karam in our hotel's rooftop. On the fourth day we had arranged to do a "desert/camel safari." Typically these safaris can have as many as 20 tourists and 10 guides, all trekking out into the desert to, as all the traveling agencies say, "sleep under the stars." But, since we were traveling in the Summer season, when few are insane enough to go to Rajasthan, our camel safari would just be the two of us, one camel boy "named" Muna (Hindi for boy. Later we discovered his real name was Mool) and three camels, Marco, Baloo and Chocolate.
Caleb was very excited for the camel safari, and had--under the advice of a travel agent--gone to purchase "authentic" desert safari clothes, which oddly none of the men in the desert seem to wear.
A jeep was coming to pick us up at eight o'clock in the morning. Caleb put on a white-cotton shirt, a red Ali Baba or Alladin pants and a green turban; I put on some pants and a shirt.
The jeep took us to some sights before dropping us off in the desert. We went to visit the local Maharaja's family cemetery, with tombs dating from the 1600s to as late as 1960; then we went to a Jain temple which was beside a dried-up lake that was probably very beautiful at some point; and finally, we visited an abandoned village. The legend has it that this was a Brahman (Priest caste) town in which one beautiful woman lived. The local Maharaja, from the Kshatriya (Warrior/Prince) caste found out about this girl and told the village he was coming to take her away for marriage. So rather than facing the shame and bad karma of allowing one of their daughters to marry into a lower caste, the towm collectively decided to abandone the village. Ironically, because this village is empty, it is now where young couples come to hold each other and give each other shy, little kisses, away from the scolding eyes of their protective parents.
We wentt back on the highway and drove for another ten minutes. All of a sudden we saw a guy and three camels waiting for us. That's when our camel safari officially started, steps away from the road.
***
FIRST DAY
-Loaded up the camels and road them to a close-bny village to give them some water.
-Then walked to rest under the sahde of a single tree. Ate lunch and had a nap.
-Muna told us the story of a friend of his, another camel boy, who married a rich Japanese tourist; Caleb became suspicious.
-After napping and feeding some goats we headed off to the desert.
-Caleb began to feel sick and begged Muna to stop the Safari. Muna said that we were 30 mins away from the big sand dunes where he wanted us to sleep. But because we were already at a sand dune caleb said "good enough. I feel sick," and collapsed under another tree.
-Being the intelligent care-giver that I am? I proceeded to feed Caleb the last (only) Pepsi we had.
-30 minutes later Caleb was doing Mahraja poses on the dunes.
Ahora entiendo de verdad el dicho que dice "se cree la última Coca-Cola del desierto" y pienso que en Colombia lo usamos a veces sin pensar en el poder y el peso que este popular dicho tiene. ¡La última Coca-Cola del desierto hace milagros! La persona que se crea la última Coca-Cola del desierto debe tener la abilidad de traer personas de vuelta a la vida y de curar diarreas instantaneamente.
-After a delicous dinner, we carried blankets upto the top of the sand dune, and arranged three "beds."
-Muna sang us some local Gipsy songs.
-We fell asleep beneath the stars. The travel agents were right: it was beautiful!
-I was very happy; Caleb was doing so-so.
***
SECOND DAY
-We road the camels top Muna's village.
-After the success of the previous-day-Pepsi medication, Caleb was determined to buy as many Pepsis as possible. When we arrived to the village, a semi-dilapidated town with randomly organized mud/concrete houses, the store was close, and instead of Pepsi Muna's uncle offered us piping hot, spicy masala chai (tea).
-The village girls decended on me and try to persuade me to give them my engagement ring. When I said no to giving them my engagement ring, or my bracelets, or one Rupee, the girls were no longer my friends.
-That night we went to a bigger sand dune were we slept, and Muna told us two fascinating things. Firstly, he told us about his American girlfriend, Maya, who was a 20-year old waiter somewhere in the States. She had gone on a solo, four-day safari a year ago. Muna pointed to the three where they had met. He was very secretive about it because his family could not know that he had any romantic relationship. We felt bad for him because he was clearly holding onto the indea of his American girlfriend as a possible escape from his life in Rajasthan, but we were pretty sure that--given our understanding of the differences of Rajasthani and American sexuality--what might have been considered three very meaningful nights for Muna might not have been other than a playful anecdote for Maya.
Secondly, Muna told us about the insane amount og money Rajasthanis spend in their weddings. His older brother jad just been married the year before, and they spent Rupees 300 thousand (CAD$6,000). To give you a sense of how much this is relative to their income, Muna makes Rupees 2,500 a month (CAD$50). It would be as if Caleb and I spent CAD$500,000 in our wedding!
Another way of looking at it is that Muna and his family are all camel boys who work for the owners of the camels used for the safari. So although we were paying the camel owner Rupees 3,000 a day to go on the safari, Muna was making less than that a month. As Muna said many times, his business dream would be to buy his own camels and start his own company, thus increasing his income 20 times over. Here is the crazy thing: a full-grown, trained camel costs Rupees 25,000, so if they had spent half of what they spent in his brother's wedding, they could have bought six camels, more than enough to start a camel safari company. Muna also told us that Maya had even given him as a gift some money to buy a camel, but that he had been pressured by the men in the family that knew about his relationship to give the money to his brother.
***
THIRD DAY
-We woke up and saw a wild peacock right in front of us.
-We tried to chase after it to take his picture, but soon learned that peacocks can actually fly!
-We road the camles some more, came back to Jaisalmer and upgraded our accomodation to an AC room.
Jaisalmer, a city of 70 thousand people, 150 km. or so East of Pakistan, is a magical, Medieval place, literally built out of sand. There are no trees, there are no rivers, there are no plants growing on walls; there is no vegetation anywhere--except from the bautifully ornate sand-stone carvings that display intricate organic configurations and that appear to cover the whole city.
Our hotel room, which took us a couple hours to find, was beautiful. It was in a 300-year old house and had a haveli feel. It also had the most amazing balcony window! When the hotel owner showed us the room we suspected he did not know the difference between a window and a balcony; what he kept refering to as a balcony looked like a shuttered window. We opened it, and we realized that our room contained the most wonderful, tiny, sand-stone engraved alcove balcony, in which one could not stand without hitting one's head.
We spent pur first three days in Jaisalmer reading in our balcony, going to the fort for mango juice and playing karam in our hotel's rooftop. On the fourth day we had arranged to do a "desert/camel safari." Typically these safaris can have as many as 20 tourists and 10 guides, all trekking out into the desert to, as all the traveling agencies say, "sleep under the stars." But, since we were traveling in the Summer season, when few are insane enough to go to Rajasthan, our camel safari would just be the two of us, one camel boy "named" Muna (Hindi for boy. Later we discovered his real name was Mool) and three camels, Marco, Baloo and Chocolate.
Caleb was very excited for the camel safari, and had--under the advice of a travel agent--gone to purchase "authentic" desert safari clothes, which oddly none of the men in the desert seem to wear.
A jeep was coming to pick us up at eight o'clock in the morning. Caleb put on a white-cotton shirt, a red Ali Baba or Alladin pants and a green turban; I put on some pants and a shirt.
The jeep took us to some sights before dropping us off in the desert. We went to visit the local Maharaja's family cemetery, with tombs dating from the 1600s to as late as 1960; then we went to a Jain temple which was beside a dried-up lake that was probably very beautiful at some point; and finally, we visited an abandoned village. The legend has it that this was a Brahman (Priest caste) town in which one beautiful woman lived. The local Maharaja, from the Kshatriya (Warrior/Prince) caste found out about this girl and told the village he was coming to take her away for marriage. So rather than facing the shame and bad karma of allowing one of their daughters to marry into a lower caste, the towm collectively decided to abandone the village. Ironically, because this village is empty, it is now where young couples come to hold each other and give each other shy, little kisses, away from the scolding eyes of their protective parents.
 |
| Maharaja's Cemetery |
 |
| Maharaja's tomb. He is accompanied by his widows, who in the Hindu tradition were force to comit sati, a ceremony in which the widows would burn themselves to accompany their husband in death |
 |
| Abandoned house. It was full of bats! |
 |
| Abandoned village |
 |
| Baloo and Chocolate, and a wanna-be desert man |
FIRST DAY
-Loaded up the camels and road them to a close-bny village to give them some water.
-Then walked to rest under the sahde of a single tree. Ate lunch and had a nap.
-Muna told us the story of a friend of his, another camel boy, who married a rich Japanese tourist; Caleb became suspicious.
-After napping and feeding some goats we headed off to the desert.
-Caleb began to feel sick and begged Muna to stop the Safari. Muna said that we were 30 mins away from the big sand dunes where he wanted us to sleep. But because we were already at a sand dune caleb said "good enough. I feel sick," and collapsed under another tree.
-Being the intelligent care-giver that I am? I proceeded to feed Caleb the last (only) Pepsi we had.
-30 minutes later Caleb was doing Mahraja poses on the dunes.
Ahora entiendo de verdad el dicho que dice "se cree la última Coca-Cola del desierto" y pienso que en Colombia lo usamos a veces sin pensar en el poder y el peso que este popular dicho tiene. ¡La última Coca-Cola del desierto hace milagros! La persona que se crea la última Coca-Cola del desierto debe tener la abilidad de traer personas de vuelta a la vida y de curar diarreas instantaneamente.
-After a delicous dinner, we carried blankets upto the top of the sand dune, and arranged three "beds."
-Muna sang us some local Gipsy songs.
-We fell asleep beneath the stars. The travel agents were right: it was beautiful!
-I was very happy; Caleb was doing so-so.
 |
 |
| Caleb on the verge of dying |
 |
| Marco and I: it was love at first sight |
 |
| "Running Maharaja" |
 |
| Sunset and wind turbines |
 |
| Our beds |
SECOND DAY
-We road the camels top Muna's village.
-After the success of the previous-day-Pepsi medication, Caleb was determined to buy as many Pepsis as possible. When we arrived to the village, a semi-dilapidated town with randomly organized mud/concrete houses, the store was close, and instead of Pepsi Muna's uncle offered us piping hot, spicy masala chai (tea).
-The village girls decended on me and try to persuade me to give them my engagement ring. When I said no to giving them my engagement ring, or my bracelets, or one Rupee, the girls were no longer my friends.
-That night we went to a bigger sand dune were we slept, and Muna told us two fascinating things. Firstly, he told us about his American girlfriend, Maya, who was a 20-year old waiter somewhere in the States. She had gone on a solo, four-day safari a year ago. Muna pointed to the three where they had met. He was very secretive about it because his family could not know that he had any romantic relationship. We felt bad for him because he was clearly holding onto the indea of his American girlfriend as a possible escape from his life in Rajasthan, but we were pretty sure that--given our understanding of the differences of Rajasthani and American sexuality--what might have been considered three very meaningful nights for Muna might not have been other than a playful anecdote for Maya.
Secondly, Muna told us about the insane amount og money Rajasthanis spend in their weddings. His older brother jad just been married the year before, and they spent Rupees 300 thousand (CAD$6,000). To give you a sense of how much this is relative to their income, Muna makes Rupees 2,500 a month (CAD$50). It would be as if Caleb and I spent CAD$500,000 in our wedding!
Another way of looking at it is that Muna and his family are all camel boys who work for the owners of the camels used for the safari. So although we were paying the camel owner Rupees 3,000 a day to go on the safari, Muna was making less than that a month. As Muna said many times, his business dream would be to buy his own camels and start his own company, thus increasing his income 20 times over. Here is the crazy thing: a full-grown, trained camel costs Rupees 25,000, so if they had spent half of what they spent in his brother's wedding, they could have bought six camels, more than enough to start a camel safari company. Muna also told us that Maya had even given him as a gift some money to buy a camel, but that he had been pressured by the men in the family that knew about his relationship to give the money to his brother.
 |
| Muna |
 |
| Muna's nieces |
***
THIRD DAY
-We woke up and saw a wild peacock right in front of us.
-We tried to chase after it to take his picture, but soon learned that peacocks can actually fly!
-We road the camles some more, came back to Jaisalmer and upgraded our accomodation to an AC room.
 |
| Wild peacock! |
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