A Better-In-Theory Desert Foray

After a quick 40-minute flight to Jodhpur, we found an auto rickshaw to take us to our hotel. To our incredible good fortune, we were escorted to our room at exactly the instant that the heavens opened to unleash a torrential downpour of Noah-esque proportions. At that moment, we both decided on the spot to make the five-hour car ride to Jaisalmer the very next morning.

The drive to Jaisalmer was relatively painless, and the skies began clearing as we moved out of Jodhpur’s vicinity. Our journey took us through terrain that morphed from something akin to the American southwest to a real-world version of the Lion King landscape, complete with scattered scrub brush and lonely acacia trees. It was easy to get lost in one’s thoughts staring out the window at the passing thatched-roof huts braving an unrelenting sun in the midst of a reddish-orange expanse.

Unlike other connecting thoroughfares in India, the Jodhpur-to-Jaisalmer road was in excellent condition. We learned from our driver that this was due to the road’s heavy use by the Indian army given the proximity to the Pakistani border. As if on cue, we soon were exposed to the Indian Army’s conspicuous presence. In the span of 10 minutes, no fewer than 20 flatbed trucks resolutely rolled by, each transporting hulking and recently-used armored tanks. We took it to be either a very good or a very bad sign that the military caravan was moving in exactly the opposite direction as us.

Jaisalmer welcomed us with an abundance of heat and dust, and we were only too grateful to indulge in a shower at our hotel before heading into the city. On the way, we stopped in at the nondescript offices of Adventure Travel, a tour operator recommended by our Rough Guide, to book a camel safari into the Thar Desert. Impatience or apathy got the best of us (being immersed in a room crammed with eager British tourists didn’t help much either), and we allowed our negotiating discipline to be subverted by an oily, glad-handing salesman. We were eventually charged what we later learned to be an exorbitant 2,100 rupees for a 21-hour overnight excursion. The unfortunate transaction behind us, we made our way toward the Jaisalmer Fort.

In contrast to other Rajasthani fort cities, Jaisalmer houses 2,000 people within the confines of its fort walls. Kaberi was initially enchanted by the continuity of life to the present day, but was soon underwhelmed by reality. Within the Fort, aggressive hawkers, single-minded cows and fly-ridden piles of filth (a combination of human trash and cow excrement) compete for scarce space on claustrophobia-inducing streets and alleyways. We both felt trapped inside a garish and charmless tourist trap. It was only when we ascended the recently-restored Maharaja’s Palace that the beauty of the city’s original handiwork (in the form of delicately-filigreed architecture) emerged. Heartened, we left the Fort to find some of the city’s original havelis, many of which struck us as even more beautiful in comparison to their counterparts in Jaipur.

The next day, after an unambitious morning, we commenced our journey into the Thar Desert with the ultimate goal of sleeping beneath the stars. We considered ourselves fortunate enough to be in a small group of five along with three friendly Austrians (apparently, India is not a popular vacation destination for Austrians, possibly because many Indian tourist tradespeople readily infer that Austrians are from Australia). After driving one hour from Jaisalmer in a jeep with limited shock absorption capabilities (an apropos precursor to the trip), we made an unfortunate stop in a local village.

Upon alighting from the jeep, we were immediately bombarded by no less than 50 primary school-aged children fervently demanding “ONE PEN, ONE PEN.” The experience saddened and disgusted us – instead of spending their days in school to learn skills to propel them to a better life, these children had been conditioned to beg from captive, camel safari tourists.

From the village, we drove directly to a camel embarkment point a few minutes away. Kaberi’s camel appeared to be the cutest of the bunch while Vik’s appeared to be the most ornery, leading Kaberi to suggest that each camel had been artfully matched to its rider. While romantic in theory, riding a camel into the desert is an extremely overrated experience. First off, the girth of a camel’s haunches wreaks havoc on the abductor muscles of those of us not primarily known for playing the ditzy blonde on Three’s Company. Secondly, male camels (it would be cruel to use female camels on safaris because they retain more water and therefore have more weight to bear) are easily-distracted (it was mating season after all). Thirdly, camels are like baseball players – they will not hesitate to scratch themselves at any opportune moment, often without sufficient prior warning. And finally, camels boast a frequency and intensity of flatulence that is incomparable. That ordinary, everyday hay could be transformed into something so fiendishly foul as that which emanates gaseously from a camel’s backside will be an unexpected takeaway for the two of us going forward. Suffice it to say that when sundown approached, we were all too happy to take leave of our camels in order to make camp in the dunes.

As our crew prepared a vegetarian meal, we walked around to take pictures of our surroundings as the sun’s arc faded into the horizon. We killed some time playing a few hands of two-person Texas Hold ‘Em and, much to Vik’s chagrin, Kaberi quickly managed to pad her shopping budget. Not bad for half an hour of poker. As dusk fell, we gathered around a small, hastily-prepared fire, and ate a simple dinner with our travel companions before turning in for the night.

As we settled into two of five neighboring bedrolls arranged on one of the dune’s downslopes, decked out head to toe in our North Face gear, we took inventory of the sky. To our surprise, the intensity of the moonlight (we had made our trek the day before a full moon) obscured our starry view. The moon actually lit up the night, so much so that we could easily scrutinize our surroundings. Vik likened it to the glare of high beams on an SUV. After some time, we managed to fall asleep, only to be awakened hours later by frigid gusts as the wind changed direction. In pitch darkness, the two of us huddled into Vik’s bedroll and flipped Kaberi’s on top of us in a futile attempt to preserve body heat. Sleeping outside in 40-degree temperatures was also proving to be massively overrated.

In the morning, we awoke to the impending sunrise. After an uninspiring breakfast, we looked at our waiting camels and wished for a Jeep to be magically conjured from the sands. Sighing deeply as we each jerkily threw one leg over our respective camels’ humps, we made our way back out of the desert. Our ride was mercifully short (it took very little time before the soreness of our thighs had registered), and we made it back to Jaisalmer proper by noon. With Jaisalmer being overrun by gangs of young boys threatening to spray tourists with colored water if they weren’t accorded 10 rupees each, we opted to head back to Jodphur as quickly as possible. On the two occasions that we were accosted by young blackmailers, Vik opted to dissuade them with ambiguous threats of physical violence rather than caving into their financial demands. Our departure from Jaisalmer couldn't come quickly enough.