Desert Down!

Random Hindu Temple.

Dinner.

Somehow with the full face shielding and SPF 50 sunscreen I still received a god awful sunburn.

Jas up ahead.

A Dung Beetle making a hasty retreat after penetrating my third line of defence, at some point in the night.

Rajasthani village woman who just didn't understand what I was doing with the camera.

The highs and lows of India continue to amaze the two of us as we made our way out to Jaisalmer. It seems like one day you can be having a fantastic time, everyone is incredibly nice, helpful, generous, and the next you'll find yourself being swindled by taxi drivers, hotel managers and bag repairers. I'll stop that line of thought though because its only headed downhill after a particularly difficult time trying to navigate our way to a working ATM in Delhi this afternoon.

We got into Jaisalmer after a very dusty train ride from Jaipur. Our train there was delayed several hours so it gave us a chance to get up close and personal with the massive rats that infest the train stations here. I would put on here how large they are, but I just don't think anyone would believe me. Jaisalmer was much nicer than Jaipur, much more laid back anyway. The huge fort that towers over the town is a sight to behold and seems like something picked right out of the Aladdin movie (didn't help that the guy who drove us there was named Babu). We quickly signed up for a desert safari along with Tom Longshanks, an english fellow we met on the train, and the next morning we were off, racing across the desert towards the Pakistani border on our camels.

Our guide was a good egg, spoke decent english and had a good sense of humour each time one of us showed how pathetic our desert survival skills are. The guy had been born on a camel from what I can tell and when asked where he lived he would simply state, "the desert". The trip consisted of three days of riding, with two nights spent out on the desert. The Great Thar Desert isn't like your typical Sahara, with endless sand dunes. Much of it was flat, dry land with the odd brush sprinkled around, although there were large sections with some massive dunes as pictured above. Thanks to an unusually powerful monsoon (this was the part of the area of India that was devastated by them this year), there was much more growth than normal.

Both nights were spent sleeping under the stars with the blankets from our saddles and our turbins as pillows. The first night brought with it some unexpected gifts from the local insect population. I have seen a few Dung Beetles on this trip, and each time have been very fascinated at the productive little creatues as they roll their poop around the sand. I had no idea so many lived in the desert. Within minutes of the camels showing up and letting loose their bowels, armies of Dung Beetles descended on us. There were easily hundreds and hundreds of them throughout our tiny camp. We soon realized that we would also be sleeping in the midst of one of their major cities. Not being a fan of having these these crawl on me all night (they would continously try to roll their balls of shit onto our sleeping mats) I set out creating a system of trenches and fortifications to prevent them from obtaining a beachhead on my sleeping mat. Most of them were between one and two inches in length, so it isn't the most pleasant experience to wake up with one trying to roll his treasured ball of camel poo into your ear or hair. Interesting night to say the least, resulting in a very fitful sleep. The next night, our guide managed to obtain a raised platform for our camp, which the beetles had a much harder time reaching.

The safari was a great experience, although I think my buttocks would rather never come in contact with a camel again. We spent one more night in Jaisalmer, then grabbed a train last night to Delhi where we are now. Tomorrow afternoon we leave this chaotic city as we head north toward Nepal, to the town of Dehra Dun.