mercredi 29 mars 2006

On the back of a camel

So monday morning, I've changed my hotel for one inside the fort, Krishna palace, a former haveli ( merchant's house ).The guys at the hotel are really cool and nice, they like to meet travellers and they seem less money-minded than in the previous hotel.
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And so I booked the camel safari from there. 2 days in the deserted area 40 km away from Jaiselmer.We were 4 tourists, 2 german guys travelling together, Goran and Mickael, one other german from my hotel, Daniel ( by the way the hotel is really small, like 5-6 rooms, yesterday we had a drink with the hotel guys and also 2 young israeli ladies ).The 2 guides leading the camel were walking and preparing the food.
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They were really nice, joyful, simple men. However they can talk english quite well, and they know some words from other languages too.The night was in sand dunes, watching the sunset and the beautiful light all over the dunes.
The sand dunes
sun eclipsed by dune sand
Night was very nice, under the Milky Way, very clear, and full of stars with no light polution.We enjoyed a beer bottle the german guy brought from town, had vegetarian meals, very good, and also very hot.
nabab leading the camel
Then after lunch today, Daniel, the youngest guide and myself left the others as they were staying one more day.The guide jumped on Daniel's camel back and so the camels were free to run. Really great, jumpy a lot though, and now my legs are half-broken :-)We paid 100 roupies tips for the guides ( + the 1000 RS for 2 days ).
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I take the train to Jodhpur tonight at 11.15pm arriving to 5am the next morning ( maybe 6 ).
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The connection is eally bad here, I will check later for pictures uploading. Next cities to go : Udaipur, Pushkar, Agra... and then Benares or the mountains.