Tuesday 4th December
The hotel organised camel safaris into the Thar Desert, the stretch of land along the border with Pakistan. The group that went was made up of people from England, Scotland, China, the US and Canada. Jeeps took us out to meet our camels and the guides that would lead us through the desert, cook for us, and make sure we didn't freeze as we were to sleep under the stars that night.
The first thing I noticed about the camels is that they are the most stinking animals I have ever come across! Horses and cows can smell, but really not that bad, not compared to the putrid, rotten vegetable stench that comes from camels. Although, sometimes I wasn't sure where the smell was actually coming from as their mouths look as gross as their arses, and I concluded that it was best to keep a sensible distance from both ends.
Camel-riding itself is a lot more uncomfortable than riding a horse, or at least without the use of decent stirrups, of which we only had a very primitive type made of ribbons. Once on the camel, we all quickly became saddle-sore, with even greater complaints coming from the guys, for reasons that should be very obvious. However, we trekked in chunks of about 90 minutes, taking a break of about two hours for lunch. We were able to get to know each other a bit more, and I had a particularly funny conversation with the two other guys on the trip, Dave and James, from Pennsylvania and Toronto respectively. I even had a snooze in the quiet of the countryside before we set off into the afternoon sun for the remainder of the days trek.
The sun blazed down in the afternoon, requiring the application of many layers of sun screen to keep off the sunburn. At 16.30 or so, we got to our camp for the evening, a large sand dune, far from anywhere else, and a great place for photos as the shadows formed wonderful shapes on the dunes as the sun came down. As night came, we had dinner around a campfire, after which some of our guides sang a few songs for us. It was a great atmosphere and the stars above us were as clear as I have seen in a long time. The sky was so clear that you could see the smaller, more distant, stars that you normally don't see, even with the smallest degree of light pollution.
After 10pm, we all settled down for the night, with beds being made up of rugs to lie on and blankets to cover ourselves. I think I got the short straw when it came to handing out blankets, and spent the first half hour coming up with new ways of conserving heat and keeping out the chill: using a towel as a head scarve and putting my hat on top, rolling up within the rug and the blanket in one - anything to get as snug as possible.
Despite the cold, I did manage to sleep for several hours, waking up occasionally to try and reposition my covering to get as warm as possible. And, on each occasion, I would hear a prolonged rasping sound of a camel farting in the background; despite my discomfort, I had to laugh to myself - they may not smell nice but at least their farts sound good!
