deserted

Camels are flatulent animals, and they seem to enjoy throwing up in their mouths and chewing on the putrid half-digested remains. And they look funny. But they are tall and proud and for some reason Rajasthani's consider them the animal that represents love... I have no idea why. But I got on one anyway and set off into the Thar Desert to go camping on the edge of the India/Pakistan border and I did fall in love... not with a camel but with the desert. The region has actually received good monsoon rains in July and August over the past two years after an eight year drought and so it's appears fairly green. I saw small antelope chasing each other in the dunes, a stray jackal looking a bit peckish, twittering birds, large beetles leaving a cross-stitched trail in the sand, purple blooming desert flowers, a sunset, the milky way with a night sky I didn't recognise, a 3/4 moonrise that lit up the sky all night, and sunrise over the dunes... it's no wonder the Maharajas were romantics. A warm breeze blew from the east and I was up for much of the night (probably mostly due to being a bit uncomfortable on the hard fine sand) dreaming awake.

rajasthan (part 1)

There's just too much to try and convey in words so it's time for another slide show... the short of it is: Pakistan/India border crossing pomposity, embarrassing portraits of babies, met a lovely Indian family traveling on an overnight train from Amritsar to Jaipur, crazy Jaipur traffic, tourists and touts and elephants and camels and sadhu's in the streets, scary monkeys, a procession of Durga devotees on the road to Udaipur (our driver "Bapu/Baboo?" has this flag of India on the dashboard that keeps falling over every time we hit a bump which is every other minute and he keeps setting it back up while simultaneously making prayers that look like baseball pitching signs each time he narrowly misses getting us creamed or passes a roadside shrine which is also about every other minute... comedy; oh, and he has an eye infection which isn't really what you want in a driver; oh, and he keeps spraying Axe body spray for men all around his waist whenever he passes gas... at least that's the only explanation I can think of.; oh, and he has been playing this horrific indian pop music that sounds like high pitched wailing set to a techno beat... he sings along!), gardens and lakes of Udaipur, Lake Palace, maharajah's palace, temples, strange idols covered in tin foil with little eyes painted back on, a model of the taj mahal in styrofoam, more cows, blah blah blah... and me riding the daily/hourly rollercoaster of excitement, enjoyment, frustration, disgust, despair, resolve, and exhaustion, as well as being hit up for money or hit on for sex (by boys) constantly. On to the pictures.