So it has been 10 days or so, and we have just left the comfort of the yoga ashram. But before we tell you what achieving nirvana is like, here are, as promised, our tales about camel riding.
We had departed from Udaipur, land of lakes, sunsets, and special Lassis, and took a "luxury" bus to Jodhpur. When we say luxury, we mean it is not one of the local buses on which people can be observed scrambling to climb onto the roof before it departs from its stop. We were not ready for that kind of travel just yet, so we opted for indoor seating on a nicer bus. It actually was a sleeper, with bunks above the rows of chairs and down the left side, but as it was a day trip and only five or six hours, we opted for chairs and Harry Potter.
Jodhpur isn't the most popular of destinations, and in fact is primarily used as a resting point before going to the guidebook-acclaimed village of Jaisalmer (centered around a wall-protected fort, named "the Golden City" because of the golden yellow stone used for the buildings, home of the Camel Safari... the usual). We actually learned we could take a train direct to Jaisalmer, but we had done a little searching on Couchsurfing.com and found a woman that seemed to be quite a good match for us from Jodphur. We wrote her and she promised us a place to stay, so we figured why not, we'll see what Jodphur (centered around a fort on a hill, named "the Blue City" because of the blue paint used for the buildings... the usual).
So when the bus rolled into the Blue City, we were greeted with the very typical throng of rickshaw drivers, salivating for our tourist rupees (read: aware that we have no idea how much it should cost to get from "random bus stop" to "hotel from guidebook"). We fended them off, swinging our bags at them like crosses at vampires, and ran across the street to a phone booth. We called our CS host, Kiran, and asked her, under the unbreaking gaze of a very determined rickshaw driver, how to get to her "place." She informed us she had arranged for us to stay at a guest house, which we thought was odd, but shrugged and let the eager rickshaw driver get directions from her.
The "guest house" turned out to be a gated-in, industrial-looking two story building that spanned the size of a big high school. A sign out front read, "The Institution of Hotel Management." Our driver spoke to the security guard out front, who unlocked the giant chain hanging on the front door and escorted us to our "room." The interior was several hallways surrounding a pigeon-filled courtyard, very much resembling a school. We climbed to the second floor and stopped next to a "classroom." Upon opening the door, we found a huge room, probably 50 feet long, that contained a Queen size bed, two full beds, three couches, two armchairs, a desk and chair, as well as a bathroom with shower that smelled sickeningly of mothballs and an attached changing room. It was bizarre. From what we could gather, it was some kind of training room for the students from The Institution. Perhaps for their "Furniture Feng Shui" Class, the final exam is to arrange some of the furniture within a cordoned off part of the room under a certain time limit. Or so Andrew hypothesized.
Apparently, though, this CS lady was somehow allowed to let people sleep their on the weekends. We shrugged, promptly deciding that although it was indeed "a place to stay," it was not what we were expecting and would be shortening our stay in Jodhpur to one night. With that, we took to the streets, catching a rickshaw to the area we had heard called "the old city." It was a giant market, and we walked up and down, "no thanks-ing" many-a salesman. We met a kid there who seemed quite eager to know our names and where we were staying (a popular question for the hotel touts, but Alex stands by the fact that he was not one...), and he showed us to a nice lake. He had his school bag with him and showed us some of his books and the English he has been studying. It was then that we were surrounded by boys aged 10 to 18, all smiling creepily and asking us our names in turn. It was a tad uncomfortable. After one of them teased the boy we were initially with, he decided to go and we thought it best to follow him away from the crowd.
The boy began teaching us Hindi as we walked through a neighborhood, and eventually stopped in order to write some of it down for us in his notebook. He wrote the English word, the Hindi word (in English letters) and then the Hindi word in Hindi letters. After filling a page front and back, he tore it out and gave it to us. We were just about to part when a friend of his came up, offering us a Hindi lesson book. Unfortunately, it was the English word alongside the Hindi squiggles, and was therefore not very useful. We tried to tell them they should find someone who can read Hindi to give it to, but the concept of not understanding their alphabet was far too much for them.
After he left, we did a bit of internetting, and as we were leaving the cafe, the owner gave Alex a jingly bracelet. Andrew glared suspiciously. We got some tea, and returned to The Institution. That night, after trying twice to call our host, we declared we were not going to see her at all, and decided instead of eating out, to scrounge up some food and spend the evening at home with our faithful TV, the laptop. Andrew went to three different snack shops, and came back with enough carbohydrates to kick off a marathon: potato chips, cookies, cookies, okay like four kinds of cookies, crackers, and a 2 liter of Mountain Dew (Yes, they have Mountain Dew. In fact, the MD bottling plant is located in Jodhpur... go figure). With our junk food laid out before us, we turned on our laptop and enjoyed several hours of carbs and Veronica Mars (thanks to Hande and Collette's very useful DVD program...).
The next day, we woke up with a bit of a junk food hangover, and went into town to visit the fort, but not before buying our tickets onward. One interesting point is that Jodhpur was the first place we didn't feel the rickshaw drivers were trying to pull one over on us. We would expect a trip should cost 20 rupees, and the driver would tell us it would cost 20 rupees. Very rare. Anyhow, we bought our tickets to Jaisalmer, and then went to explore the hilltop fort. It was really nice and had a fancy audioguide that included sound effects and music. After the tour, we ate at the fort restaurant and explored the old city one more time before heading back to The Institution. Back in the safe confines of the wierd classroom, we played games and watched a bit more TV, waiting for the time to catch the train. As it neared, Alex wisely suggested that they leave earlier as usual as there is always some hitch in getting where we are supposed to go.
The hitch this time, as it turned out, was that the nice security guard apparently wanted to make sure we felt safe in The Institution, and had bolted the giant chain to the front door. We were literally locked in. As Alex shouted from the crack in the door ("Hello? Hey! Let us out!" Etc), Andrew ran to throughout the building and found a way onto the roof as well as a seemingly sturdy pipe that lead to the ground. While contemplating with some excitement the possibility of scaling the building, Alex had managed to get the guard's attention, and he unlocked us. We left through the front door (aka the boring way) and made it to the train station with time to spare.
The night train to Jaisalmer was absolutely f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g. We woke up periodically (every two minutes) and were just unfrozen enough to shiver. It was cold. Everyone else on the train was snoring under inch-thick wool blankets, obvously much more accustomed to overnight-Indian-train-travel. We eyed them jealously, but eventually we were close enough to our destination that we gave up on deep sleep. A couple men (touts) approached us, flashing brochures about their hotels, and offering us free rides from the train station. As it was 5 am, we had no desire to trek around town on our own, so we agreed to go with one of them to their hotel. We crammed into a jeep with five or six Australians, and rode to the hotel. When we expressed fear for our bags falling off of the roof, the driver assured us that "the guy up there is holding onto them." Okey-dokey (and before anyone gets onto us for accepting a ride from a guy on the train, don't. Everyone does it, and if you don't have a ride, then you are assaulted by the drivers outside, each carrying a sign with the name of the hotel that will pay them a 10% commission for getting you in the door. It looks like some kind of riot that might occur at the Institution of Hotel Management).
The hotel was small and motel-ish. Nothing we didn't expect, and when he told us the room we were looking at was 100 rupees, we shrugged and ignored the less attractive aspects of the room. At five in the morning after shivering on the night train, nothing is more attractive than a bed- be it possibly full of bugs or not. After a good, long nap, we woke up, ready for the hot showers that were promised on the brochure and by the tout on the train. Alex turned on the water and sneered. It was by no means hot. Andrew got an employee in there (the tout as a matter of fact) and he asked us if we wanted it "hotter than this?" We glared (and as you may know, one does not want to be on the receiving end of an Alex glare). Hot? No sir, that is barely classifiable as tepid. He told us he would make it hotter, and asked us to wait twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later, the water was upgraded from almost tepid to a little warm, but it was still far from hot, so Andrew informed him we would be unable to stay. Yes, it may sound drastic, but we swore to ourselves that we wouldn't stay at a place that didn't have hot showers any more. After all, we will be trekking for 22 days in the mountains of Nepal, and word on the streets is that showering in the icy water is indeed a last resort for the smelliest of trekkers.
So we trudged through town with our luggage, ignoring the requests that we stop in a shop and check out some authentic camel leather hats ("No thanks, we'd really love to look, but we do have the entirety of our possessions hanging from our backs at the moment..."). We were steered left and right as we asked where the tourist office was, until one man informed us it was down the hill quite a ways, and we'd be better staying at his hotel, promising that he wasn't going to push a camel safari on us as so many other hotels will do. Quite a tricky fellow, but our backs hurt so we obliged him. He showed us a room, and told us that although he didn't have hot showers, he could provide as much hot water as we wanted for Indian-style showers. It went against our hot shower vow, but he matched the 100 rupee price, so we accepted. The room was small and cozy, much to our liking. We drank tea on the roof, at which point the man, Sunny, told us the rooms were warmer at his hotel because the roof was covered in "cow sheet" instead of cement. Hm... we didn't know what to do with that so we just ignored it.
At this point, despite his promise, he pulled out a small photo album of happy foreigners wearing turbans, smiling from the backs of equally happy looking camels. Okay, tell us about the safaris... And he did. After some amount of apparent brainwashing, we decided that the best way to spend our time in Jaisalmer was indeed a two night, three day camel safari into the desert. Who knows how or why we were convinced that we needed three days to truly experience the desert, but we were. But not, of course, before bargaining down the price and getting the night's stay in the hotel free.
After wondering if we had made a good decision, we wondered through the fort, and were told two or three times not to visit the palace. The people who told us this, locals, said it was 250 rupees a piece and there was nothing of interest inside. They were right about the price, so we decided they might be right about the contents, and we passed on it. Instead, we met an Australian couple who was looking for an ATM, and since we needed cash ourselves, we followed them across town to the nearest bank. Along the way, the man told Andrew that renting hiking equipment in Kathmandu is "as cheap as chips," which was quite a comfort. Because chips are pretty darn cheap.
On our way back to the hotel, we were lured into a shop full of really fantastic wall hangings. Although we informed the proprietor that they were two and three times out of our souvenir budget, we found one that we really liked, and he eventually accepted what we told him was our "top banana" price. It's a very nice wall hanging. The man was really nice too, and we had tea and nice conversation with him before leaving with our sparkly new wall hanging. We met up with Sunny, who had promised to take us by the Haveli and a pajama shop (No, we still aren't getting Turbans, Sunny). The haveli was pretty interesting, an ancient apartment complex of sorts with a very intricate exterior. It was fairly odd, though, to see at night, as the light nearby would turn on and off in ten second intervals(to conserve power?), and Sunny told us the strangest, least relevant story about an Indian Romeo and Juliet. Nice story, all the same. Afterward, he took us to what he called a garment factory, but looked an awful lot like the other clothing shops. A man showed us the pajama set, but since we just wanted the pants and he couldn't sell them separately, we left apologetically. On our way back, Sunny spotted a shop that sold pants separately, and after a bit of color selecting and a lot of haggling, we left, two pairs of pajama pants richer. The material was incredibly thin, and for a moment Andrew wondered what his mom would say, something along the lines of "I could have made you a pair of those for TEN rupees!" We went back to our room and tried them on. To our chagrin, they did not fit.
Here's a little known fact about Indians: they all have super skinny legs. Even the big ones apparently have the skinniest legs. And we, as Americans, do not. So although the waistline was no problem, our thighs threatened splitting the seams of the pant legs (okay, it wasn't that bad, but it definitely wasn't going to make our camel riding "more comfortable"). So, with Sunny out on an errand, we set off for the shop ourselves. We met up with Sunny half way, told him our plight, and he escorted us back to the shop. The man, with out blinking an eye, told us a refund was impossible. We told him they didn't fit, he showed us bigger sizes. Although the waists were indeed larger, the thighs were exactly the same width, but showing him this led no where. We asked if we could just have the money back and he refused. Why not? He shrugged, and told us "shop rules. It's my shop and those are my rules." This interaction continued for more than ten minutes, him insisting we take the "larger sizes," us insisting we take the money as the larger ones were not larger, and everyone (mainly Andrew) getting very agitated. We begged, we pleaded. He told us he wasted his time showing us everything and now we were wasting his time hassling him. Andrew told him all of our time would be much less wasted if he would hand us our money, that we would be gone in ten seconds, but to no avail. Eventually, a friend of the man's came in and talked to him for a while. He stood up, ripped the pants out of our hands, and threw our money into them. He muttered how he hated customers like us, Americans, and told us we better not buy pants anywhere else. We were ab-so-lutely fine with this, and happy to have won, although we did assist in besmudging the reputation of Americans (the man who talked him into refunding our money went on to explain that it is very unheard of to do, so it's possible we are a bit spoiled by the Wal-Mart style returns we are afforded, but hey- they didn't fit!).
After our victory, we had dinner at the hotel, and then played cards with Sunny and the hotel cook. It was a lot of fun, even though both of them were absolutely horrible card players. We taught them the game of Bluff that we learned in Jaipur, and Sunny busted out not one but three bottles of Rum, which he kept trying to serve to us long after we told him we were finished. As we went to bed, Alex felt a strong case of cold feet. Three days in the desert? Are we sure about this? But Andrew was already fast asleep, visions of camels lumbering in his head.
We woke up at 7:30, and met our camel safari companions, two Brit guys named Tony and "Tony's friend" (actually, his name was Robbie, but Sunny didn't know his name so we heard him referred to more as the former). We rode in a jeep-like vehicle for about an hour to where five camels were waiting eagerly for us. It did not take much observance for us to realize that camels are awesome. One of them had a plastic red flower tied to his reins, which looked ridiculous on top of his ever-smiling face. Their faces really are fantastic- in the same way that a hound dog always looks depressed, a camel looks forever in a state of bliss. And after looking at them so closely, it is very clear to us that they are somehow related to the giraffe. Mounting a camel is much like riding a bronco, it seems. You have to lean back in the saddle (after leaping onto it) and hold on for dear life as the camel unfolds it's back, and then front legs. You feel you will fall off the front end, and then the back, before settling somewhere in between. Steering is done much like a horse, except their harnesses are attached to their snouts by these gruesome looking peircings. Andrew got the reins to his camel, Raj (Prince), but the others were tied to each other and our three camel guides led them on. Andrew assured the others that steering wasn't too much different than not steering, as the camels follow each other single file. In fact, steering is just like being led except for you have the knowledge that if the camel were to take off in a sprint, there would not be someone there to stop it other than you.
The motion of the camel is humorous. Because of their long, lanky legs, it's a much bumpier, rockier, and more uncomfortable endeavor than riding a horse. In fact, it is much more like riding a broken coin-operated horse outside of Wal-Mart. It wobbles back and forth, thudding hard as it's padded feet find the ground. After ten minutes, you wonder why the pajama pants were ever suggested, as their kleenex-thin material surely would have eased the inevitable thigh chaffing. After a nice, quiet hour or so, and after Alex determined that it was not easy to read a book while riding (seriously), we made our "desert road trip" official with a few rounds of 20 questions. We rode for a couple hours into the desert, and when we broke for lunch, dismounting the camel made us feel like we were walking on the moon... drunk. Walking was no longer second nature, and Alex's fear that three days was too much came back to her quicker than flys to a camel's snout. The camel drivers made a fire and cooked us a blandly nice cabbage dal, with chapati bread, as well as some really delicious multi-colored (and deep-fried) chips, bananas, and "unlimited bottled water" (We had already lost track of the amount of times Sunny told us the bottled water was unlimited). Sunny showed up in the Jeep and joined us for lunch. He brought along another bottle of Rum, which was just a little too much for us in the middle of the day in the desert. We stuck to our unlimited water.
After a quick photo shoot in front of the Jeep (the Jeep driver loved taking pictures with it), the camel drivers packed up the camp while we watched (the "camp" becomes the saddles that donned the camels). Interestingly, the camels' humps were much less defined than every cartoon we've ever seen would have had us believe. We theorized that this was because they were better fed, and perhaps did not need to store up as much as say the wild camels of Aladdin or Dr. Seuss. We mounted once again for a slow, bumpy trek deeper into the desert. After some time, we came to a village which our drivers encouraged us to explore. It was divided into two castes: the gypsies and warriors. We were advised not to go into the warrior caste's section, as they were off limits to foreigners. It turned out that it was actually Sunny's village, and when he showed up (after apparently trailing us with the Jeep at some unseen distance) we were granted entry into the rich warrior part of town. What made it rich? Well, as Sunny pointed out, the buildings were made of imported Jaisalmer stone, and the ground was covered in "cow sheet."
Sunny was very excited to give us a dose of the "real Indian experience," so after having chai on the cow sheet floor, we retreated to one of the rooms and Sunny's sister pulled out a torture- er, make that makeup kit. She sat Alex down and informed through miming that she wanted to "doll her up." She pulled out a coal black mixture, like a tub of stinging mascara, which they use around the eyes on women and children. Alex dabbed the goo on as daintily as goo can be dabbed, but this was not enough for the evil makeup lady. She dug into the tub and slathered black mush across Alex's eyeballs, fogging up her contacts and causing her eyes to burn. After using almost a full bottle of our "unlimited water," we were able to get the contacts clean, but every time we tried to reinsert them, the goop resmudged her eyes. The entire time, mind you, this sadistic woman reiterated how beautiful she now looked with black eyeliner on her bloodshot eyes, and even added a dot on her forehead. At this point, Alex was quite sure she did not need three days in the desert.
We barely escaped the clutches of the eye-torturist, and rode head-on into the sun for the remainder of the evening. With the sun setting in front of us, burning our noses to a red almost as brilliant as Alex's irritated eyes... and forehead dot, we felt like we were getting quite an authentic desert experience, except without the mirages. We arrived at a stretch of sand dunes, in the classic Sahara desert style, and explored the hills, leaving footprints across the rippled sand. It was impressive how cool the sand turned as soon as it fell into shade, and we enjoyed the sunset on a soft cusion of cool sand before retreating to the campfire our drivers had built.
At this point Sunny arrived once again in order to see that we were still having a super-fun time. We were his family, after all. We told him yes, we were indeed having a super-fun time. His spirits were high. When he left to check on the food, we conferred and decided that we would be quite alright with calling our safari off one day earlier, and leaving with Tony and Robbie the next afternoon. It was for the best, as our scheduled train to Delhi was an hour after our safari was supposed to end, and we were already stressed about making it in time. Add to that two pairs of sore thighs and one pair of sore eyes, and we had almost had our camel fill (nothing against the camels-- they really are awesome). So we beckoned Sunny over and broke the news to him- We'd like to go home tomorrow. His head drooped. He put on quite an act of depression as he explained that he had already made plans for a 3 day safari, had already bought supplies for a 3 day safari, and already hired drivers... for a 3 day safari. We talked with him for 20 minutes, in which time he apparently forgot the English language, misunderstanding everything we said and saying it was simply impossible to go home early. Now, throughout the safari, whenever we saw Sunny, he was singing loud about how it "isn't about the money." We were his friends, his family, and he just wanted us to have a good time. The money meant nothing, sure everyone needs money, but we were his friends, etc...
So, it should come as no surprise then that the second we told him we would not ask for a refund of some of the money (on the condition that he give us a free night's stay in the hotel one more time), his hand appeared in front of us, ready to shake on it. Instantly, he went from depressed to exuberant, and was once again dancing to the shrill Indian singing that was blaring from the tape player he had brought.
But we never regretted that decision, and know it would have been far too much to go a third day. That night, the desert was cold, but we were given 7 blankets- 2 underneath and 5 on top, and were incredibly cozy. The moon was ridiculously bright as well, casting our shadows and keeping us awake if we laid on our backs. It was really cool. The next morning, we awoke to our favorite camel driver serving chai and biscuits, followed by jam and toast and some guavas that we threw in the bush after one bite. We mounted Raj and Rocket, and headed back toward civilization.
The ride home was quite nice, especially with the knowledge that it was a ride
home. We stopped again for lunch, which was another bland-tastic dal dish, and then spent a couple hours lounging in the shade of a desert tree playing cards with the camel drivers. They were still horrible players, but it was a lot of fun. When they rounded up the camels for our last ride (at break time they remove the harnesses and all, and the camels are allowed to roam mostly free-- that is they have a rope attaching two legs so they kind of hop sometimes) they apparently realized that we were running late, so we were allowed to give the camels a few extra "ya!'s" and race them through the desert. It was a painful blast. We bumped and shook across the desert at surprising speeds for such dopey creatures, and took turns taking each other over. Sunny had told us our last destination was to be an "oasis," which we didn't believe, so we weren't disappointed when we arrived at a phone pole next to the highway which was to be the rendezvous point for the Jeep. We took a few last minute group pictures, hugged our camels good bye (would you believe they never spit once! They did gargle quite a bit, though), and rode back to the hotel.
We spent our last day lounging about, eating Italian, and generally patting ourselves on the back for not being on camels at the moment. We caught our train no problem, but not before Sunny bought us a beer and admitted to us that he did not even work at the hotel, but apparently rented out the rooms and then sold safaris to the people that stayed in them. What a fink. He rode with us to the train station and helped us find our seats. Sadly, the train cars were mislabeled, so there was a mass exodus between the two cars as people scrambled to get the very valuable space beneath the beds. We squeezed past a bunch of Spaniards and secured our bags, preparing for a nice long, chilly night ride to Delhi. It ended up being pretty comfortable, and we met some nice military guys who were fascinated by the concept of "love marriages."
Well, that's all for this novel, but next time we will tell you all about the yoga ashram and the Maharaja Mac. Yep, we finally found another McDonald's.
