To start off my India trip, I decided to do a 3 week tour through Northern India. I ended up in a really great group. There were only 6 of us, 4 girls (Mieke, Emma, Kerry, Me) all travelling solo, and 2 guys (Tom and Will) travelling together.
One of our first big activities a few days into the tour was an overnight camel safari just outside Jaisalmer. The way it was described I thought we’d be riding our camels out into the desert and camping out around a fire under the stars. It didn’t happen at all like that, but it was still pretty cool.
Our camp was actually quite luxurious. We shared these huge white tents, with beds, furniture, electricity and an attached bathroom. All the tents lined the perimeter of this open square. Our camel safari ended up being a 45 minute ride out into the desert to watch the sunset, but it was still really fun.
We were lucky and each got our own camel. My camel’s name was Babaloo, and the handler was just hilarious. When he spoke he finished all his sentences in a really high pitch voice. The walk out to the dunes to watch the sunset was really nice, my first time riding a camel! Getting on and off the camels was pretty interesting. Getting on wasn’t so bad, but to get off I had to lean back and then the camel dropped to his front knees so that I was pushed forward. Out on the dunes we weren’t very far out so it was pretty touristy. There were guys selling bottles of beer, and women dressed up beautifully in sari’s with full makeup, a baby perched on their hip, asking if we’d like to pay for a photo. I guess you just can’t escape it.
On our way back to camp the boys wanted to race camels, so the handlers got up behind them and got the camels running. Soon all the handlers were up on the camels with us, and we were all off running. The whole thing was just ridiculous. I was bouncing around everywhere but couldn’t stop laughing. My camel handler just kept saying “Fun? You like? Babalooooo!” We made it back to camp pretty quick and since it was such a short ride it wasn’t all that uncomfortable.
Back at camp we were treated to a performance with dinner. They had some men playing traditional instruments, and this woman came out to do some dancing. She balanced this giant ceramic thing on her head that looked like jugs stacked on top of each other, and walked over some shards of glass, stuff like that. After the first Mieke leaned over to me and asked “Do you think that’s a man?” Next time she came around it was pretty obvious that she was in fact a him.
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