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Desert Sunrise: India Day 13 (Camel Trek day two)

September 19, 2008

As is wont to happen when you’ve tried to sleep through a sandstorm, getting up and having to tiptoe past sleeping camels and stray dogs just to take a piss, and having to haul a sandy blanket over yourself to stay warm, we didn’t really sleep in.

In fact, Natacha & I were up early enough that we could hike to the top dune and watch the desert sun rise over the dunes. A treasured moment.

We brushed what sand we could out of various crevices, knocked back some chai and—believe it or not, eggs—and saddled up once again to head out of the desert.

By the way, did I mention that Brit Kate was basically c-teasing Brit Richard the whole trip? Oh yes. Hopefully Natacha will fill in the details on that, as she has a better memory of it. But yep. British girls are famous across the travelers’ communities for basically treating the world like spring break, and our duo was no exception: flirting with the camel herders, looking for dude attention wherever they could find it, and drinking and toking whatever was offered them.

(Here's a New York Times article on how horrendous British tourists are. They're the new "ugly Americans!")

Tennessee rode on Emma’s camel on the way back and I wondered if that didn’t represent some new intimacy they might have had. And by “new intimacy,” I mean the night before, maybe they did it. Though to be fair, the dual-camel ride was my only proof.

Earlier in the trip Emma had mentioned that they might spend the night at a guest house in the fort. I mentioned that the Lonely Planet was trying to warn people away from that, as all the water runoff of the city (from showers, toilets, etc.) erodes the sandstone foundation of the fort. On the trek back, she said, “Ken, Tennessee tells me that the lonely planet just says that because the hotels outside the fort pay them to.” Oh, okay, Emma. Instead of believing the backpacker’s authority on the area (Lonely Planet, not me) and UNESCO, it makes more sense to believe a guy who’s paycheck comes from a tourism company located inside the fort. Whom you probably did it with.

On the way back, Richard was sick of riding his camel, so he decided to walk along the herd. In flip-flops. Frankly, it seemed he’d only gone on the trip to follow Kate and Emma (mostly Kate, who had been traveling for the last 8 months sans boyfriend).

Considering the amazing places Rich had traveled to in the past two years (Mongolia, for one) I have never seen someone traveling for two years be such a complainer.

I do remember Emma cooing to him, “Riiiiiiiiich, Riiiiiiich, is that more comfortable than riiiiiiding?

Should Iiiiiiiiiii get off my camel toooo?” And Rich basically having a plume of black smoke coming off his head, he was so miserable. Kind of hilarious.

We made it back to the trailhead in about two hours, posed for a group photo and got back to Jaisalmer by noon or so.

We and found a cheap guest house (like six-bucks cheap) And spent the rest of the day looking around the fort.

Remember what I said how amazing the fort was from a distance? It was no less impressive from inside…just a fascinating place. Narrow streets, Ancient temples, a palace, cows, dogs, tiny shops…there were ramparts all along the edge with fantastic views of the city around us. We walked around, shopped a bit, and mostly imagined what fort life would’ve been like.

We then picked up our train tickets from Jaisalmer to Delhi, and later, had dinner with our travel pals Marie and Greg (whom we ran into when picking up our packs from the trekking office), taking them to the rooftop restaurant we’d been to before. In our last night in Jaisalmer, it was a pleasure to share the dazzling evening views of the fort with them.

SOME PREVIOUS INDIA POSTS:

Hell train: India Day 14 (Jaisalmer--Delhi)

September 19, 2008

The day started out fantastic. Seriously.

Because any day spent in and around the Jaisalmer fort is a fantastic one. Once again, we ventured from our phenomenally cheap guest house (so cheap that it had Indian residents living in it!), into the Jaisalmer fort. Just walking around the perimeter threw us back a hundred years.

We had breakfast at the July 8th Natural Restaurant, a little place by the camel trek office where the fruit shakes were safe and the owner was a chatty mom-type who told me that she hurt her leg when she was pushed while disembarking a train, but her dish washer had mystical powers and he healed it.

She also offered to make us vegetable Paranthas for the train—“with yogurt, not water, so they will not go bad without refrigeration”—and I took her up on that. Thanks new Indian Mom!

We did the audio tour of the Jaisalmer palace, which was a pleasant walk through the history of the place and reiterated that the preservation society was working hard to save the fort from the increased water runoff from inside the fort (so there, Emma!).

After that, we had some horrible Italian food, walked around a bunch more, shopped for jewelry but didn’t buy anything, and shopped for fabrics and did: On a tiny side-street we stumbled across one of the very few women-owned shops in the fort. Natacha talked with the proprietress for an hour or so, hearing about the difficulties of being a woman shop owner. How she can’t put her best pieces outside to draw foot traffic because the men from the other shops vandalize or steal them. She gets her inventory directly from women in the surrounding weaving villages, and she did have some lovely blankets, pillow cases, scarves and such.

Natacha bought a bunch from her, as N likes to support women-run businesses when we travel. The woman hadn’t made a sale in days, and was so grateful she gave us free stuff, like a shoulder bag that Natacha used every day for the next three months.

Come afternoon, we grabbed our bags and made our way to the train station. This was our first sleeper train in India (our first train in India, period). We took “sleeper” class, the lowest-class sleeper car, to save a few bucks; plus, since the desert nights were cool, we figured we didn’t need A/C; just keeping the windows open should do the trick.

We struck up conversations with the brit couple and the lone Kiwi on the platform. On the platform, we met a few other tourists, all of whom had higher-class tickets than us. Each time we told a backpacker what class we had, they sort of shifted uneasily and said, “well, it’s probably fine…” I swear you could hear the ellipse.

Occasionally we’d see skeevy looking Indian guys hawking locks and chains for luggage. Guide books generally recommended that you keep an eye on your bags at all times, and if you can’t, lock ‘em up. We suspected that the skeeves had some sort of racket where they had keys to all the locks they sold.

Once on the train, the berths were bench-hard. The bottom berths were benches where you’d sit during the daylight hours. We made it a point to have our bags up with us at all times—under the bottom bunk while sitting, and with us in the top berth when lying down to sleep.

Maybe a couple hours into the trip, they started closing all the windows, because too much dust was coming in. Around that time, I did the math, and realized that we would not on the train for 14 hours, but 19. And the misery began.

Despite the one-berth-one-passenger rule of sleeper cars, our berths were crowded with young Indian men, who, though they each had their own bunk farther up or down the train, preferred to sit four-to-a bunk and keep each other company. They noticed that Natacha’s book was about Hinduism, and mine had Indian imagery on the cover as well (it was Edward Luce’s excellent In Spite of The Gods), and started to ask Natacha about both of them. We talked with them for hours (mostly Natacha; my social skills had taken a header in India), and found out that they were soldiers being transferred from Jaisalmer to Jaipur.

One of the soldiers showed us photos from his travels in Jaisalmer and Udaipur. He always posed the same way, not smiling and some elbows-back model move. We teased him about that. It’s funny how non-westerners so rarely smile for photographs.

So we talked, and laughed, and tried to make sense to each other. At one point they insisted that we share their dinner with us, and I had a few bites. Definitely the spiciest food I ate in India.

On the one hand, this airless, dusty, crowded train voyage was hell. We spent hours straining to forget we were being constantly stared and/or laughed at. I’d wish it on no one I liked. BUT, it was the first time we experience the Real India. And by this I mean we spent time with Indians who were genuinely interested in talking to us. Who were not looking for our money. Their English wasn’t fantastic, but as will always happen when traveling, we made do.

After a while, the heat and dryness took its toll. It wore us down. We ran low on water. I ran out when the train stopped in Jaipur and bought some grubby bottles and some snacks. I counted off each hour as it slipped by. I hope I never have to utter the phrase, “six hours down, thirteen to go” ever again.

Sleeping in the top bunks made it even hotter. There were two fans in the ceiling which seemed to have no effect whatsoever. I spent the night propped up on my day pack and a sack of laundry. Natacha had the bulk of our bags in her bunk, to her credit. I popped a Benadryl to help me sleep. Not one of my better ideas, as it left me drier than that pack of tissues in your glove compartment.

SOME PREVIOUS INDIA POSTS:

Hello camel, good-bye car: India Day 12 (Camel trek Day 1)

September 16, 2008

A big day, not just because we were about to embark on a fabulous two-day camel trek. But the day we gave Ramesh the FUCKING heave.

The night before, we told him we were letting him go, and asked to meet him early the next morning to give him his tip. We arranged to meet him in one of the main town squares ,just before we were to meet the camel guides. This way, he couldn’t pull any shit because we wear in public.

We wanted to give him a tip before sending him on his way. He did meet us, coming off with a strange combination of nervous, preoccupied, and angry. He asked us to write a note to his boss saying that we were relieving him of his duties. We did so. He also offered to stay in Jaisalmer while we were on our trek, in case anything went wrong on the trek. We said NO, thank you. He then walked to the edge of the square and made a cel phone call and sulked.

Soon, the camel trek guides showed up in a jeep. Soon another of the trekkers showed up, Richard, a tall young British guy who had been traveling for the past two years. He came by to tell us his two companions were on their way. So we waited, and waited.

Ramesh came back, holding out his cel phone. He said his boss, who wanted to know why we were letting him go, was on the line. Natacha took the phone and said that Ramesh was a very good driver, but that we didn’t want to take a car for the balance of our trip. We figured there was no reason to complain about his attitude or his scams. The guy has to make a living…we just didn’t want it to be at our expense. He refused to take a tip, which was fine with me, and then we were DONE with him.

Finally, about 45 min late, the two British girls, Kate and Emma (of COURSE those were their names) showed up. They had just spent long holidays in Goa and were on the tail end of their trip. Kate looked like the blonde from the British “Coupling” and Emma looked like a taller, meatier version of Jenny Agutter. I’m pretty sure part of the reason they were late is that they had to do their makeup.

We all piled into the jeep, Natacha and I hi-fiving each other for finally leaving Ramesh behind.

After a group breakfast with the Brits and two Spanish girls—our full group—we piled into a van and headed out to the desert

The camels, along with a half-dozen guides, were waiting for us, each loaded up with blankets and reins.

One of them had a nasty gash on its head, but they had him out there nonetheless.

Each one kneeled down so we could climb up on him.

We rode these big, lopey animals in a line several hours into the dessert, over hills, dunes, and past trees and scrub. I named my camel Perry, after a kid I went to junior high with. He was way too tall for his age and in PE he had a loping gait that reminded me of my camel. About two hours in, at the hottest part of the day, we camped out under a massive shade tree and had lunch. The guides lit a fire and fried up pakora and chips of some sort.

Kate and Emma talked about their weddings---or rather, the weddings they expected to have. They went on and on, egged on by me. It was fascinating in a real-life-Bridget-Jones sort of way. The subject got to the “first dance” song. Kate wanted hers to be “You Do Something To Me” by Paul Weller. I asked if it was a cover of the Cole Porter song and she didn’t know who I was talking about. Emma wanted some horrible Billy Joel song for her wedding; I can’t remember which. I really hope it wasn’t “I love you just the way you are.” That would have been too horrible for comprehension.

After lunch and a short nap, we continued trekking until we hit the dunes—lush, smooth hillsides and soft, gradual ripples of sand. It’s here where we set up camp. Natacha & I took photos of each other on the dunes and climbed around for a while.

That evening, we ate paranthas—there’s really only so much “real” food you can pack onto camels and eat. Not so much in the way of veggies in the desert. Or dessert, for that matter.

Stray dogs followed us but mostly kept their distance.

At sundown, one of the guides, who wore a NY Liberty shirt and called himself “Tennessee,” asked who wanted to climb up to the highest dune at sunset. We were all a bit tired out, but Emma went—just her, Tennessee, and I think a few other guides. I think Tennessee was trying to get with Emma.

Natacha & I watched the sunset on our own:

They all came back after sunset, and the guides lit a fire and Tennessee took out an empty water bottle—one of these big plastic sparkletts-type things that had been drained of drinking water—and began to sing what we believe are the songs of the camel herders. He had a strong, clear voice and the songs were evocative of lonely dessert nights tending to your flock.

He used the bottle for percussion—big resonant hits with low tones. I recorded some of the songs. There was even some dancing going on.

After a few tunes, he offered the bottle to us to sing songs of our own. Everyone was timid and passed on it. I said what the hell, and with the bottle in my lap, did the song I knew with the most basic drum hook I could think of: “Love Stinks” by the J. Geils band. None of them had ever heard the song before but It went over very well.

The brits eventually tried their hand at some Oasis songs, which was fun—I think Oasis are destined to become the new classic rock sing-alongs; our next “Sweet home Alabama,” “Satisfaction,” “Yellow Submarine,” etc. Some industrious desert nomad came along earlier in the evening and had pot and cold beer to sell—putting the now-warm bottles Emma and I bought before leaving Jaisalmer to shame. So there was some getting wasted going on, though not by N & I.

We decided to turn in, just as the guides decided to really get singing. So not so much sleeping for a while. “turning in,” incidentally, consisted of lying down on one of the many camel blankets and covering ourselves with our spanking new sarongs.

In the middle of the night a sandstorm kicked up, so we found more blankets to cover ourselves with. It got cold, and we were full of sand in the morning, but damn, what a fantastic night.

Have I mentioned how amazing this trip is?

SOME PREVIOUS INDIA POSTS:

India Day 1: Good God, We’re Here

The last drive: India Day 11 (Jodhpur--> Jaisalmer)

September 12, 2008

(Alternate title: “The last straw.”)

Long drive to Jaisalmer, so up early and off early. We made our usual Stuckey’s stop earlier than usual. Then, after lots of road, small towns, and the occasional herd of road goats, got within visual distance of Jaisalmer.

What can I say about the Jaisalmer fort? A real-life sand castle. A Star Wars set piece. An outtake from “Dune.” It is one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen—the photo doesn’t do it justice. Truly one of the most glorious sights I’ve ever seen.

And then came the last straw with Ramesh. Jaisalmer being on the edge of the Rajastani desert, camel treks are quite popular there. Ramesh promised us he could find us a good place to have a camel trek, and that he could get it for us at “half-price”—something about me being a writer would come in handy. He assurued us that he could make it happen, and after all, he did find us a good place to stay in Jodhpur, so we said what the hell.

He took us to an area outside Rajastan that was known for decent camel trekking. So far so good. He took us to a compound with a series of huts, sort of a guest house for a camel experience. We noticed that a couple of the huts had their own air conditioners. Again, all right. Then we med the guy who ran the place, a tall dude with a loud starched shirt and a long pinky nail…the kind of guy you’d expect to sell you fake gold jewelry or style your hair in Queens. Not very camel-y.

We sat down with some tea and talked options for camel trek. He talked about taking us out into the desert on a “camel cart” (basically a horse-drawn cart with blankets) for a few hours at night. For a price at around double that of an actual camel trek. We explained what we wanted, and he said to get it would cost even more money. Then told us a cautionary tale about the German tourist on a camel trek who wanted to sleep by the fire, and got bitten by scorpions as a result, and whose life was saved because the trek guides were there. He said to get a trek at the price we were asking, he couldn’t guarantee that he could have guides to stay with us and protect us from god-knows-what-in-the-desert. Trying to scare us into paying his price. You can imagine how Natacha reacted to that.

Basically, Ramesh took us to a rip-off joint. And lied to us for the commission.

Equals the last straw.

We had Ramesh take us into Jaisalmer and said good-bye for the next two days, not telling him where we were staying. Once we got situated, we found a place to book a full camel trek for the next day, for about 1/2 of what jewelry boy quoted us. Then we bought light billowy shirts and pants for the desert heat. And after walking around the town a bit and having a nice dinner at a gorgeous rooftop restaurant in full view of the fort, we called Ramesh and told us we were firing him. Which worried us a little bit, but also felt FUCKING AWESOME. Um, I mean, it was a relief.

SOME PREVIOUS INDIA POSTS:

Day Two/Delhi: In Which We Punt

India Day 3: Boo-yah

India Day 5: Jaipur, Fort, Shopping

(UPDATE: Many) Indians are short

India Day 1: Good God, We’re Here

Forts, spices, pushy drivers: India Day 10 (Jodphur day 2)

September 9, 2008

You know that moment where you realize that no matter how bad a situation is, it’s not THAT bad because some one else has it worse? We had ours at breakfast today.

Over chai and muesli, we met a haggard-looking pair of Italian ladies at our hotel restaurant, who also had a driver and were just shy of terrified of him. Their tour (also not the best planned), consisted of driving all day and staying at whatever hotel their driver told them to. Since they usually arrived near sundown, they were generally too wiped out to argue, and the times they did, their driver bullied them into compliance—if he spoke to them at all! So here they were on some forced death-march of a car tour, and our biggest problem is that we only won most of our arguments with Ramesh. I didn’t hear the Love Boat theme or anything, but I did feel a little better that we seemed to be doing better than other tourists in our situation.

That said, we did notice that all the drivers seemed to be taking their charges to this hotel. So we did get sucked into that.

Today was really one of my favorite days of our trip, because we saw what would become one of my favorite sites: The Jodhpur fort.

If you’ve read previous entries, you know that I’m quickly running out of superlatives. So let me just tell you what I’ve learned.

Rajastan literally means “the land of kings.” That’s because each city was its own kingdom.
Each of these kingdoms had to project itself, so each one built a fort
each fort contained one (or several) palaces, one (or several) temples, and quarters, open squares, defense emplacements and a hell of a lot more.
we’re talking big forts

Not having seen Delhi’s Red Fort and not realizing the Ghost City was one of these as well, Jodphur was really my first conscious exploration of one of these. And I was frankly blown away. HUGE, this place.

The fact that it’s high on a hill does a few things for it: makes it even more majestic, and of course defensible. So, you know, good call there.

It also afforded spectacular views of the city of Jodhpur. Jodphur’s known as the “blue city” because its buildings and homes are in fact painted blue—have been for centuries.

Supposedly makes the buildings cooler and—get this—repels mosquitoes. Yet another reason to join Blue Man Group.

Also great (if smoggy) view of the current rajah's current palace:

Great stories abound in this place, such as the one about the dead concubines. Now hear me out. When an invading army deposed a king, he was killed, as were his concubines. Just inside the main doors to the palace, there are a row of tiny handprints in the concrete…these are of a particular defeated king’s concubines, just before they were put to the sword. Gruesome!

Also impressive are the high battlements around the palace perimeter, on which cannons bought and gifted from around the world were kept. Many came from Portugal and China, but I spotted a number from Britain and possibly the USA as well; all the result of trading with the kingdom of Jodhpur.

That was what really hit home in the Jodhpur fort: KINGS. These were actual Kingdoms, with royal courts, where representatives from other kingdoms would be presented, and there would be trading with other countries, but you had to respect the laws of the kingdom.

Camel races! Elephant tug-of-wars! Armories of hand-crafted guns, and knives, and knives that shot bullets, and armor made to fight and kill and take over other kingdoms! This is the kind of place where Rudyard Kipling books and David Lean movies were born. Amazing.

Anyway, I was so entranced by the cannons that I lost Natacha up there. I looked for her at the celebration at the fort’s Jain temple. Not there. I looked along the outdoor market that sold flowers and food to leave at the temple altars. Nope. I went back up to the cannon ramparts, back into the palace, even to the gift shop where I’d bought some postcards and an elephant painting. No dice. Almost drove myself to dehydration running around looking for her in that hot desert sun. After we found each other again, We resolved to always have a planned meeting place when we’re touring around like this. We’ve been breaking that resolution ever since.

After a side trip to another, smaller palace on the way, Ramesh dropped us back into town. We spotted a spice store, which was in our guide book but I think Ramesh warned us away from. but we went in anyway. We’re pretty sure of why he didn’t want us to go in there: it was run by a woman. We spent a lovely hour there talking about, trying, and eventually buying spices from a very charming young lady. The spice store had been started by her father, but he’d retired (passed?) not long ago and his seven daughters were running the two stores. Natacha took every chance she could to try to give women her business while in India. We bought some wonderful aromatic spice teas and a number of cooking spices from her while there. Jodhpur has been a center for trading for years and is perhaps most famous for its spice trade. We were happy to have captured our own little part of that history.

We walked around a part of town we hadn’t seen yet, where I bought a sumbwa suit for myself. Well, three gorgeous blue-patterned pieces of cloth that would make a sumbwa suit, which we used as sarongs for the rest of the trip. Later, a group of small kids in a broken pedal-cart followed us around for a few hundred meters and try to get our attention, grabbing at our hands and clothes. It was like being in a Little Rascals episode, if the Little Rascals were starving.

By the time we shook Vijay and Our Gang, them, it was dark and we did a bit more shopping, not finding much of anything but a watermelon we planned to eat the next morning. Then, we walked back through the outdoor market, missing it already.

SOME PREVIOUS INDIA POSTS:

Day Two/Delhi: In Which We Punt

India Day 3: Boo-yah

India Day 5: Jaipur, Fort, Shopping

(UPDATE: Many) Indians are short