Our Camels, Beansy and Clyde
Trip Start
Aug 25, 2003
1
26
55
Trip End
Jul 18, 2004
Bikaner,
India
Sunday, February 8, 2004
Bikaner was defitely the less touristed desert counterpart to Jaisalmer. Like almost every city in Rajasthan it had a palace and fort, and the palace was worth the visit just for it's mosaics. But we didn't come to Bikaner for palaces, we came for a camel trek. Luckily we were able to talk to someone who had just come back from a camel trek organized by Bikaner's very own "Camel Man." The review was satisfactory so we signed up for a two day one night trek, which could be extended if we so desired.
By 10:00 A.M
Camel #3 never, ever, stopped chewing
. the following moring, we said goodby to our guesthouse owner and were off on our camels into The Great Thar Desert. The "we" was Sarah and myself, riding camels designated for us, two people on foot holding the reigns to our camels, and an entourage of people riding on a cart already full, presumably of trek equipment, being pulled by a third camel. It turns out, thankfully, that the entourage wasn't for us. All but one were just taking a free ride by camel cart to the next village. Stll, that left three people for a two tourist camel trek.The first rule of camel riding is to get on the camel "slow but fast." This, I figured out, meant getting on smoothly without taking too much time. I was given the camel with the attitude and this rule was key to getting on. The first time I tried I must have somehow instictually known what to do because it was no problem. Of course it was still a weird experience. It seemed like the camel was at a standing position three times before it really was. This was definitely better than later times when I wasn't so smooth and the camel (we later nicknamed Clyde) seemed to get straight up all at once.
Sarah's camel was not so moody, but it had other "issues" which you can probably guess since it was nicknamed "Beansy." Then there was the mating season "call." All three camels with us were male, and whenever another camel approached they would make this sould like water glugging out of a plastic jug while wagling their extremely long toungues out
Clyde Ride
. Apparently this was to establich dominance, and among our three, the cart pulling camel appeared the "most dominant." Of course I'm not a camel so what do I know?Off we were into the desert, on Beansy and Clyde. If the mental image you have is something like Lawrence of Aribia, as ours was, you're a little off. It was definitely hot and arid, but the desert here was also full of lots of scrub brush, not rolling dunes. We actually saw a lot of wildlife as well: antelope, birds of prey, and something our guide Dula called a "Blue Cow" which just looked like a big antelope to us. Even more ruinous to our mental image of the desert were the areas of agrigation. That's right, as we rode along, it was more like desert, desert, small village, desert, unbelievably green pasture, desert, more pasture, desert, etc. Not quite Lawrence of Arabia. Still, the sky was clear and at night there was a full moon which lit up the desert almost as much as daylight. And where we camped it was desert as far as the eye could see.
As uncomfortable as camels are to ride, when we stopped, our comfort was guarenteed. The cart being pulled by camel #3 was full of food, water, cusions, blankets, chairs and a table. The food was excellent and the portions seemed ridiculously large, not exactly roughing it. It didn't exactly take away the stiffness from riding a camel all day either, which is why we left it as a two day trek.
