Who wants to go on a camel safari?

I love the memory feature of Facebook. Today I had a memory pop up that made me laugh. My friend Sue, who you met in my Iceland blog, and I went on a camel safari 5 years ago.

Naturally, who wouldn’t want to do this completely adventurous, off the beaten path, in the middle of no where adventure? Sane people that’s who LOL.

Sue and I have seen more of India than most Indians. It’s relatively inexpensive to travel within India once you get there. Hotels, transportation, food are all very reasonable. Of course you would never rent a car in India so hiring a driver, hotel car or in most cases fly!.

The prospect of going on a camel safari in the desert sounded so “Sex in the City, Movie 2”. Exotic, adventurous, intriguing and a once in a lifetime kind of thing.

Desert or bust

So we planned a weekend. A 2 night stay in the desert, camel rides on the dunes, clear night skies where every star in the universe could be seen, posh tent. I mean what could go wrong? HA.

We’ve stayed in our fair share of hotels that “look” glamourous, but when you get down to it, there may not be something like, NO heat, for instance. You make do. It’s all part of the adventure. The ability to go with the flow.

We took a small plane to the city of Jaisalmer which sits 350 miles west of the state Capital Jaipur and 6 hours or so from the Pakistan boarder. Go figure, I’m sitting next to a guy from Chicago who was on his way to work. I’m sure some of you have heard of Jaipur, it’s also called the “Pink City” where Jaisalmer is called the “Golden City”. The town sits on a ridge of yellow colored sandstone.

Our first stop was a night in Fort Rajwada, the web site looked fab, eh not so much in person. It was fine don’t get me wrong, just not very luxurious. One thing that says luxury for me anyway is a hotels bed. If the bed is comfy, you have won me over. Beds in India tend to be super hard (good if you like that) and my arm falls asleep inevitably during the night. I have found some hotels that have really nice beds.

Now when you are in India, we don’t roam about. So the hotel is usually where you spend your free time at night, unless you are fortunate to have friends. So once we settled in we were ready to hit the bar and have a beverage and some snacks, as we usually do. Nope, no bar, no alcohol, dry state. WHAT!!!! There are a few dry states that we have been too such as Ahmedabad, home of Gandhi, but there’s usually a work around.

Camel camp

The next day we drove out to the camp. On the edge of the desert sat this fenced camp with tents. Interesting. I thought we were sleeping in the desert? Ok, maybe this was safer. Our room was not done up with two beds so they had to bring in another. As you can imagine the bathroom in the tent was interesting. I’m pretty sure I planned on not showering for the 2 days. Hey, when in Jaisalmer!

We arrived in time for dinner. There were other groups of people staying in the tent camp and after chatting a bit we discover there was a secret stash, (of course there is), of wine coolers. Cash only. HAHAHA. When in Jaisalmer!

Born to ride

Rise and shine, it’s camel safari day. So excited. After breakfast we are brought to the camels, which were just near by the tents. I’m sure most of you know that when camels are mad or feel like they need to defend themselves they spit. We were very aware of this. I have ridden horses and been on an elephant so, I thought I knew what to expect. WRONG! A camel is very different, it’s in-between.

First, the saddle is so incredibly small and uncomfortable and because of the camel shape you feel like you are leaning forward the entire time with this little handle stabbing you, um well lets move on, the entire time. After about an hour I had enough and so did the camel. This is not the posh exotic fun WOMENT we expected. It was torturous pain!!!!!

It was the beginning of the end of my camel safari. We opted to go back to the camp. Our guide offered to take us to see the sunset in the desert. I mean, when in Jaisalmer! Let’s try that…because you should always say YES to new experiences as I’ve said before.

The dunes were really great. Camels, dunes, waiting to see the sunset in the Thar desert. It was really lovely.

While we didn’t have the most fab experience, I feel good I did it.

Now I’m gonna sit back, have myself a WOMENT, with a black market Breezer, toast to saying YES to adventure and admire all the stars.