The Thar Desert or How I rode a camel

Yesterday, I left our guest house - The Desert Haveli - together with Rachel, Richard and Alex to go around two corners . There we deposited our big backpacks and had breakfast. We got to know also another Chris and her friend Vincent. Together with another group we went outside the fort to some jeeps that brought us into the desert.

After an hour driving, we met our camels. They got packed with water, food, beer and our day-packs and off we went.



After only some 15-20 minutes of riding the camel, we visited the first little settlement where 100 people from a lower caste are living. We gave the kids some pens, but they kept coming to us without please or thanks, just "Rupees", "Skulpen" and "Chocolate" we heard.



Then we went back on the camel for about two hours before the camels kneeled down again and we had lunch. Vincent and me helped the camel man preparing the food: vegetables with a lot of garlic, chapatis and chai (tea). After the meal we rested till 3 o'clock as the sun was quite burning.



In the afternoon, we went quite a distance visiting another village (this time a Brahman caste one) and Alex distributed some chocolates and became acquainted with a lot of kids. Also our camels got something - water. Leaving them we headed for the sand dunes where we made our camp for the night. While our singing camel drivers (no money - no worry - no chicken - no curry) prepared dinner, we climbed the dunes for sunset. It took sometime, especially as the sky was cloudy. On top we also met the other group again who camped on the backside of the dune.


While we were sitting on the top and waited for sunset, it started to rain a little bit. That we found quite amazing as we thought we are in a desert and as we had heard that it does not rain sometimes for 7 years.



Later on, we sat at the campfire singing songs, eating and finally went to bed early beneath the stars.

This morning around 7, I woke up and I was feeling warm. We got some breakfast before we headed off again and now I felt the pain in my legs. Especially, when we started to trot in a faster pace which made me nearly fall off the camel. But we made it all back to the starting point from where we went back to Jaisalmer by Jeep.