Bhang

The last few days had been so packed with activity and adventure that it is probably not much of surprise that the notes in my filo-fax reveal very little of any significance. I probably spent the day writing postcards and letters or reading. The first part of the day is covered by the words "Hari 50Rs buy off. Chillums".

Clearly Grace and I had been a hit with Hari. We had listened to his music and we had even been invited to his home. We were practically family. As a result he latched on to us as soon as he saw us. He was a nice guy but he kept pestering me for a souvenir in particular he wanted my watch. It wasn't a very fancy watch, a Tissot I had been given for my 30th birthday. It wouldn't have been a very long lasting souvenir either because it doesn't work now. I didn't give it to him but I did give him some money. Not very much, just over £1 in fact. I was on a budget but all the same it doesn't seem like enough now. It might have amounted to a day's pay or even more but it was still only about a £1. I feel cheap. Then again Hari seemed happy enough. Life is cheap in India.

At some point during the meanderings of this day, nothing very much of which seemed to have been noteworthy, I am sure that I visited the local Bhang shop. I must have because there is a photograph taken by Grace.



This was another thing that I didn't do properly. Bhang is legal. You can buy it in "ahthorised" shops like this one or even "authorised" ones. The way it is supposed to be taken is in the form of a drink like a bhang lassi or in the form of sweets. I knew that. The problem is that I am extremely wary about ingesting drugs. It all stems from an experience on the best ever trip before the trip I am describing here.

That trip was with my mate Brendan and was the forerunner of the Big Trip - The Interail Trip. It's what people used to do before worldwide international traveling became easier. I can't go into it here but it was a great experience and somehow, looking back, a sort of Big Trip training exercise. The itinerary began and ended Amsterdam. I am trying my best to remember whether the experience came at the beginning or the end. I think it must have been the end because it was on my birthday that it happened. Having conquered Europe Brendan and I returned to Amsterdam and set up our tent on the famous Vliegenbos camp site across the river from Centraalstation and then immediately made our way to the Koffiehop "Rusland" where they sell traditional dutch style Koffie (coffee) and a wide selection excellent teas. As well traveled aficionados of coffee and natural born tea drinkers this was obviously the place for us. Not only that but they also were also noted purveyors of finest quality hashish from the orient.



I digress here. Those were the days when to my mind 'potsmoking', as my mother once quaintly called it, seemed to be a good deal more organic than it is these days. The stuff available was honest-to-goodness dope. You could get, inter alia, Maroc "Sputnik", Maroc "Zero-Zero', soft Afghan Black, Lebanese blonde and real original strains of herbal cannabis from, say, Thailand. Whatever you got, was good quality and apparently unadulterated and, what's more, it was possible to smoke a joint without becoming completely wasted. These days, it seems to me (not that I am making any admissions of any kind) that the varieties of hashish available in Amsterdam are all so strong that sometimes the experience is not of euphoria but heightened edginess. Roll on the day of enlightenment when the weed is freed. There has got to be a market for "Real Pot" in much the same way as there is for "Real Ale". A cool koffieshop selling old fashioned, hand crafted, genuine cannabis products to ageing hippies would go a bomb.

Anyway, the Rusland was also famous for it's confectionery. In particular cake. More particularly "Space Cake".



So there we were in the Rusland at the bar where a small amount of something or other to fortify a cigarette was purchased. While there Brendan asked the girl behind the bar about the Space Cake. Having established it was affordable he asked for a slice. The girl positioned the knife to cut a slice and Brendan explained that the cake was for me because it was my birthday the following day. The girl smiled broadly and changed her cutting angle and cut a bigger slice than she might have done. As she put it in a bag she gave me a knowing smile and wished me a very happy birthday.

The next day dawned on the campsite. Brendan and I woke up in our sleeping bags in the tent that had seen good service in Venice, Florence, the Ionian Islands and Rome. It was my birthday! And what better way to start the day than with a huge number created using some novelty cigarette paper which came on a roll? We boiled up some water for a cup of tea and then began to feel peckish. We had nothing to eat except my Birthday Cake! Brilliant! We shared the cake but it is fair to say that I had the lion's share of it. This was not because I am greedy but because Brendan didn't want that much and it would have been a shame to waste it.

We just about kept it together long enough to leave the campsite and head across the river before (in a Dr Hunter S Thompson stylie) the cake began to take a hold. By the time we reached Centraalstation I was a mess.

The plan was to go to the VVV office outside the station and book tickets for a concert the following night at the Concertgebouw (something by Handel or Haydn conducted by Bernard Haitinck) . We got there but by this time I could hardly speak so Brendan had to make the booking when we got to the front of the queue. The helpful guy then picked up the phone and dialled the concert hall Box Office. It was busy so he hung up and dialed again. The line was still busy. He instantly cut the line and redialed. The line was still busy. He tried again and again and again and again. By this time I was becoming distressed. I couldn't stand in the place and watch the man just redial, hang up and redial over and over again. It was becoming too much to handle. It seemed to go on for hours like we were stuck in some kind of loop. We couldn't leave because the guy hadn't got through but it seemed like he never would.

Of course it wasn't completely unbearable but I did feel terrible. I felt as if all the blood had drained from me and I was extremely unsteady. I just wanted to get out of there. The place was probably full of fresh faced, clean living teenagers from all over Europe booking excursions, rondvaarts, making hotel reservations and getting information. I was oblivious to their presence by they probably weren't oblivious to the fact that there was a cream faced loon in the room who looked very much the worse for something or other.

The guy did eventually get through and we got our tickets. After that all I can remember is following Brendan up the Damrak towards Dam Square. It was a much seedier place then than it is now. You couldn't cross the the square without some (usually black) guy sidling up and whispering "Hashish! Hashish!" (as if I needed any and as if if it wasn't widely available). Wherever Brendan went I was stumbling two steps behind. If he stood in a puddle, I stood in a puddle. If he didn't, I did anyway. I was a shambolic figure.

This state of semi-consciousness just went on and on and wave after wave of the effects of the cake washed over me. I genuinely have no proper recollection of what I was doing. I was only glad Brendan hadn't eaten as much cake as I had because if both of us had been in my state God only knows what would have become of us. We did go to the Rijksmuseum but I can't recall very much at all except standing in front of the Nightwatch by Rembrandt which I could only recall as being very dark.

I don't know when I came round and started to straighten up. We did go to the Concertgebouw the next day which was great but somehow Brendan lost his wallet.

The problem with ingesting drugs is that once you have done it there is no way of undoing it. If you eat too much you don't find out until its too late and there's no way to turn it off.

So I was very wary of eating bhang sweets or drinking bhang lassi. In the right company (or the wrong company depending on your point of view) I might have tried it but in the company of Grace, Imogen and Mandy it didn't seem like a very good idea. I did, as the picture above shows, buy a bag of dry bhang which I smoked that night on the roof of the hotel in large neat joints. It wasn't very effective.

At some point during the day I also picked up some souvenir chillums. These are pictured below. I also purchased a very fine elephant sculpture which I will photograph and add to the next posting.



Dinner that night was at the Hotel Trio again where there was more Rajasthani music and this time dancing too. Then, as I have said, we repaired to roof of the hotel for another night under the stars trying in vain to get high on neat bhang joints.

Ignorance and Bliss

The last day of the camel safari involved a short walk after breakfast to a village which specialised in the manufacture of hand made wool carpets. I dare say they were very nice but I didn't take a picture and can remember nothing at all. We then ambled on to some gardens which my notes describe as "Maharaja's gdn".

These days I am getting a reputation for being grumpy and as I approach my 49th birthday I may soon be able to count myself as a grumpy old man. I wasn't so old then, unless you think 30 is old. I did, however, have a grumpy sort of attitude to most of the very much younger silk road pedestrians. The main cause of my grumpy feelings was that among them were the "gap year" types. The worst of these would be the the ones who were having a gap year before going to university.

I suppose there is an argument that they might have gone on to university with some kind of experience under their belts, something to mark them out from the others perhaps. On the other hand they were so young that all they wanted to do was party and invariably couldn't wait to get to Australia and probably weren't disappointed when they got there.

Mind you, the graduates on a gap year weren't much higher in my estimation. Perhaps my memories of university days are viewed through rose tinted spectacles but it wasn't exactly hard work, was it? OK, there were lectures to go to; tutorials to prepare for and attend; essays to write; and the high pressure of exams at the end of each year. On the other hand, there were a lot of parties and rock concerts, gallons of beer was drunk (sometimes by the gallon) and there were other things that as a student at university it was almost expected that you would have a go at (which I have never regretted). There were girls too. In my case not too many, it is fair to say, and mostly right at the end (only one regret and I shudder when I think about it). Each year was three terms long and was punctuated by a month off around Christmas, a month off around Easter and then over 3 months off in the summer.

So 3 years at university amounts to nearly 18 months on holiday and a lot of the remaining 18 months was spent looking forward to parties at the weekends and getting out of one's head one way or another at various other times.

The question is: after such a good time why would you need a holiday? Exactly what do those university graduates, who now seem to consider a gap year as a right, think they have done to deserve a year off? To my mind most of them are simply putting off the inevitability of having to face real life. They are proof in themselves that university is not really a very good preparation for life.

My main beef with the gap year types is that they didn't seem to appreciate where they were. Some of them were only just old enough to get allowed into pubs at home and the graduates had brainwashed themselves into a belief that they had achieved something deserving of a trip of a lifetime which they then simply wasted by spending their time hanging out in groups of their own kind looking for western style entertainment.

Of course it was not universally true but some of them knew nothing at all about the cultures they were visiting and hadn't the faintest idea where they really were nor, which is the real pity, did they care.

So I am a grumpy old man. What's more, I am a grumpy old hypocrite. Why? Well, because my notes say "Lunch, temples and Maharajah's gdn". I did take the picture above which was the view from the shady spot where we rested. I didn't know where I was. I hadn't the faintest idea. I have had to do a bit of research to work it out and what I found out has disappointed me. I was going to write: "For all I know this could have been Amar-Sagar." The official "rajasthantourism.gov.in" site says "Just 6 kms. on the way to Luderwa [Amar-Sagar] is a natural spot developed by Maharawal Amar Singh in the form of a water reservoir in 1688 AD. The dams were constructed to hold rainwater. Several terraces are formed where summer palaces, temples and gardens were developed. On the south of the lake stands the exquisitely carved Jain temple constructed by Himmat Ram Bafna, the descendant of famous Patwas."

However, before just writing that (plagiarising the government website) and moving on, I thought I'd do a Google image search and discovered that we were indeed at Amar-Sagar and from the images available on the net showing the interior of the Jain temple there it is a crying shame that the nearest we got to the Amar-Sagar palace is exactly demonstrated by the photograph I took. We never saw any terraces nor the lake let alone the exquisitely carved Jain temple.

If I had known where I was I might have insisted that we actually go and have a look around. On the other hand I was probably enjoying a relaxing smoke under the tree. I remember Hookmah telling me that the desert is a great smuggling route. It is probably still the case these days. One can only guess at how hard it would be to police a desert that straddles the border of Pakistan. Hookmah told me that every night camel trains crossed the desert from Pakistan bringing in contraband such as Hashish from Afghanistan and Pakistan. We made an arrangement for the supply of a small amount of something sticky and black later in the day after our return from the desert.

The final leg of the journey was the 6 km walk to the citadel, a triumphant return.

We checked back into the Pushkar Palace and having spent 3 nights out in the open Grace and I opted to actually sleep out on the roof. This option amounted to the cheapest hotel accommodation of the whole adventure. Rs5 per night. At the official exchange rate that was around 15p.

We had the advantage of sharing the bathroom facilities of the room occupied by Mandy and Imogen and after a thorough shower, the first in 4 days, and freshening up we went out for dinner to the other top restaurant in Jaisalmer, "Monica's". Part of the freshening up process involved a shave. I have recommended having someone else to shave you before and I am not ashamed to do so again. It is certainly well worth it for under £1.00. I'm sure whether it is worth what they charge at some of the trendier salons that offer the service these days. There I was being shaved by a professional barber with a cut throat style razor (a brand new blade in it. Here the service is likely to be provided by a girl with a GNVQ (generally not very qualified) in some vocational course called Grooming Technology or such like fresh out of the local Tech, I mean University.



On our way back out we met Hookmah who made good on the arrangement we had made in the desert.

After dinner, thoroughly exhausted, another night under the stars on the roof of the hotel. Bliss.

Water and Shade

Day 3 of the safari, 13 November 1990, and my notes say (again pointlessly because of course I did and no time is mentioned) that I got up and this time it says "v. sore". After the distance covered the day before, it was no wonder. It was simply the bouncing and the swaying and the breadth of the camel's back that caused the aching muscles and joints. At least there was no chafing. My cold from Kashmir had disappeared. The notes mention porridge for breakfast and the cryptic "+ the rest" whatever that means.

This day we weren't in any hurry. We walked our camels to a village. I can't remember much about the village except that I think the houses may have been made of dung, or perhaps the houses were heated by briquettes of dung. Dung was in there somewhere, for sure. I also remember that Imogen needed to go for a pee and couldn't make the urgency clear to our guides. When she couldn't wait any longer they motioned that she could go anywhere and so she made for some cover and did what she had to. Unfortunately she must have chosen somewhere inappropriate because it caused a small incident with some village women shouting at her and us. It was a bit of a shame that we should have come such a long way from our western culture and to have spent two days trekking in the desert to get to this village only for Imogen to then have put her foot in it. I think the problem was that someone else might have put their foot in whatever she had done.

So, rather shamefacedly, we left the village and our camels walked on to a place near some water wells where we stopped for lunch.



I took the above picture probably rather hurriedly. I didn't really like to point the camera at the women carrying large water pots on their heads. It seemed rude. The very arid terrain is shown quite well in the picture and the fact that these women have clearly collected water and are walking off somewhere but exactly where cannot be seen in the frame so it is clearly quite a long way off.

After pausing at this spot for a while we headed for some shade and this very relaxed day proceeded to an extended lunch in the shade of a tree. I think that sitting beneath that tree was one of the best times of my whole trip. A good lunch was eaten and I had a good smoke, lay back and took a picture of the only thing I could see: the tree.



While we sat beneath this tree and relaxed another camel safari came by. The drivers from that safari came over to join Hookmah and Cooba and everyone sat around talking. I took a couple of pictures of these interlopers.







During this time in the shade of the tree Grace, Imogen and I chatted and discussed what we might do when our time "on the road" had to come to an end. Imogen said that she had decided that she was definitely not going back to accountancy. She expressed a love for what she had experienced in India and hinted that some of the locals (e.g. the one above sporting impressive ear jewelry with a large stud that couldn't possibly have been a diamond) were one of the attractions that could detain her.

Our next stop was at an oasis. A oasis is the sort of thing that has a much more romantic sound to it than the reality. All the same this body of brackish water was something unexpected. If I had arrived at it almost dying of thirst I suppose I might have fallen face first into the shallow water. As you approach the water the edges come alive with countless tiny frogs or toads that jump out of the way into the water. Apart from the brackish nature of the water, the other thing that could put you off drinking it was the way the camels stood in the shallows and simultaneously drank while urinating.



Incidentally, if the above picture is not the worst photograph I have ever taken then it certainly one of the worst. It is best viewed as it appears above this text. If you click on it to enlarge it you will find that nothing in it is in focus at all. It exemplifies the problem with those pre-digital camera days. Wanting to conserve the Fuji Velvia or Kodachrome 64 meant that if the only photograph you took was rubbish then the only photograph you took was rubbish and that's the end of it.

From the oasis we wandered onwards arriving at a deserted settlement as the light faded. I have no idea exactly where we were and the picture I took is not very good. The light was very poor and I probably forgot to take the polarising filter off. There are two possibilities as to where we were. We were either at Luderwa 16 kms. Northwest from Jaisalmer, the old capital of Jaisalmer. Now a silent city, the only witness to its former splendour are said to be the Jain temple, a toran (ornate arch) and an artificial divine tree (Kalptaru). Ruins of the deserted capital and the remains of an apartment of Princess Moomal still recall the famous love legend of Moomal-Mahendra.



I see no arch nor any artificial divine tree in my picture. I'm not sure what the structure pictured is. It could be a Jain temple. The other possibility is that this was not the deserted city but one of the many deserted medieval villages to the South West of Jaisalmer.

A short distance from the deserted place we struck up camp for our last night under the stars.



To add to the magic of our last night, after dinner our party was joined by a flautist who played traditional music by the light of the fire. Grace and I took our sleeping bags a few meters away from the fire and watched another stellar fireworks show as the constellations rose and slid over our heads.

Dumb Animal Cruelty

Waking up in the sand the next morning I felt pretty sore. A camel's back is very broad and spending a good few hours of the day before sitting astride one in an unfamiliar position, legs akimbo, had resulted in an aching backside and stiff muscles.

The notes say "Up. B'fast - sore" I don't suppose there would have been a note at all if I hadn't got up. The mentioning of getting up is completely redundant. Likewise mentioning breakfast without saying what it was. It would have been worthwhile mentioning the fact if there had been no breakfast but there was. What it was will never be known because it clearly wasn't noteworthy.

Facilities for washing etc were extremely limited. I suppose I must have washed my face and brushed my teeth but not much more than that. After breakfast we were back up on our camels and the note says "3 hours trotting" then in inverted commas within the notes "bottom breaking". This might have been the phrase used by the camel driver Hookmah (pictured below) or his assistant (and the cook) Cooba. Come to think about it it was probably used by Hookmah who had a cruel streak.



I don't know how fast camels trot but I dare say that you can cover a fair distance trotting for 3 hours. In these three hours I really got the hang of Heather (or perhaps Hetha) my camel. In order to make the camel speed up all you had to do was show the stick to it. There was literally no need to use the stick. The mere sight of it was enough to cause it to speed up. Another technique was to make a sort of Donald Duck noise out of the side of your mouth. That had the same effect. It was tremendous fun trotting across the rocky terrain.



As I mentioned before Imogen's camel was a bit frisky. She had fallen off the day before but it wasn't possible to say whether it was anyone's fault. However during this trot across the desert it misbehaved. Despite Imogen's attempts to determine its direction it insisted on trotting alongside Hookmah and his camel which caused the tackle to almost snag and it could have hurt Imogen's leg on that side. Somehow a serious incident was averted. We trotted on for another hour but the incident was not forgotten.

There was very little purpose to this part of the safari except to cover some distance and eventually we reached some shade to have lunch and rest. At this point Hookmah decided to discipline the frisky camel. He led it a little distance from where we were sitting in the shade and tethered it to something before hobbling it by tying one of its front legs up so that it was standing on 3 legs and couldn't run. Then he put a blindfold on it and proceeded to give it a frightful beating with a stick. It was awful to behold, the poor camel was completely defenseless and all of us, particularly Imogen, pleaded with Hookmah to stop. He didn't until he was good and satisfied that the requisite punishment had been meted out in sufficient measure.

I have often thought about how Hookmah beat that camel. I suppose he knew what he was doing but I couldn't see the sense of it. I couldn't see how the camel would appreciate the reason for the beating it got. One of the incidents had happened the day before and the other some hours before. I suppose Hookmah knew his business and that he would say the only way to make sure a camel toed the line was to put it in fear of a beating. It was a young camel and had to learn the lesson. Still, it was an unedifying spectacle for us.

Having said that, after three hours bouncing and swaying in the saddle; and after a good vegetarian curry for lunch; and after an aromatic cheroot to boot; the spectacle did not stop me falling asleep in the shade.

Upon waking something became very urgent. This trip wasn't like a film/movie where it seems no-one ever goes to the toilet. At some point on most days I did. The previous day I hadn't and I had had at least 3 great vegetarian curries with chapatis cooked in the embers of the camp fire since, not to mention the delicious chai by which everything was washed down. On top of that the motion of the camel probably assisted in the pressing need to deal with another kind of motion.

The desert is not the best place to take a dump in private. The whole point of where we had stopped was that it was one of the few places with a big enough tree to give some shade from the sun. I made my excuses and headed a short distance away from the group with my knapsack in which I had my roll of toilet paper. As I walked the need to go became more and more urgent. Eventually I found a tiny bush to hide behind and I squatted down. The relief was palpable and afterwards I looked at what I had done and I am sure that it was the biggest turd I had ever produced. In fact it was so big that I was quite embarrassed that someone might see it (even from a distance) so I tried to cover it with a large stone. Funny what you remember, isn't it? It was not the only memorable toilet experience in India by any means but it was certainly the healthiest bowel movement of my time there. As a stool sample, it would have drawn gasps from young medical students.

Much relieved, I rejoined the group and we we set off again, this time, thankfully, at walking pace until we reached the Sam sand dunes at sunset. Camp was struck and another fantastic curry was followed by a repeat of the previous evening's meteoric fireworks in the sky viewed flat out and stoned; occasionally flicking away the the inquisitive dung beetles.

Seeing Stars

I do wonder what I had hoped that I would be able to recall from the sparse notes made in the Filofax. The first entry is "Mahararjah's Cem." This was the first stop on the ride into the desert. As in Kashmir some research of my destination would have been useful. The availability of that information now via the wonderful world wide interweb is a Godsend. My note was nearly right. Our first stop was at a place about 6km from the city which by a process of deduction I am pretty sure is called Bada Bag. The official Rajasthan tourism website says: "Royal cenotaphs with carved images of late Maharawals and their families are seen. Each chhatri preserves an inscribed tablet recording the death of Maharawals on which the memorials are raised. The chhatris have been built in a set pattern but in different sizes." A Maharwal is a variation of the term Maharaja which is Sanskrit for "Great King". Maharawal is the variation used in Jaislamer so my note was not as far off as all that.






So there they are, or some of them at least. My mind is a blank. I can't remember how long it took to travel the 6km. It might have been an hour or so. We then remounted our camels and headed off again.

The next note in the Filofax says "Lunch + chillum". Both words might speak for themselves. While we rested in the shade of a tree I noticed someone, I'm not sure who, getting stuck into a chillum pipe-full of some very nice smelling hashish. I can't remember if I had some. I must have. I mean why would I have let the opportunity pass? I didn't make a note of it. I didn't make a note of what we had for lunch. Frankly, it isn't good enough. The notes just go on to say "Jain temple - Dinner Stars Imogen falls off".

Things couldn't have happened in that order. We probably visited the Jain Temple in mid afternoon after having spent a couple of hours in the shade while the heat of the middle of the day subsided.










I do remember that Imogen fell off her camel at some point. She wasn't hurt badly despite the fact that falling from the top of a camel is quite a height from which to fall. I don't remember whether it was her fault or the camel's.

Dinner was absolutely fantastic. It would be no exaggeration to say that the very best food I ate in India was on the camel safari. All cooked on a camp fire. vegetable curry and home made chapatis. It really was very good but again there is no mention of it in my notes.

Stars. I've never seen so many and never seen them so clearly. In London the sky is washed out by the orange glow of street lamps. Even here at home in North Wales because I don't live out in the countryside getting a good look at the sky is not easy. Out there the stars were so bright that it wasn't really dark. The sky was lit up.

It was better than that because of another stroke of luck. This camel safari coincided with the Leonid meteor shower. Of course, I had no idea why the sky was full of shooting stars but over the years that have passed since I have noticed references to the annual Leonid meteor shower which takes place every year peaking on 17 November plus or minus a week and it has dawned on me that I must have been out in the Thar Desert at the beginning of the annual shower.

After a day in the saddle and a fantastic vegetable curry, I lay on my back on the sand in my sleeping bag (the second occasion that I had a proper opportunity to use it) staring up at the sky. Every few moments a "shooting star" would race across the sky. The whole experience was, of course, enhanced as a result of the souvenir lump of recreational smoking material from Kashmir.

Closer to ground the main fascination was the large and industrious dung beetles going about their business.

A few meters away the camels were hobbled.

Eventually sleep came. It was a pity because it had been such a great day that it was pity that it had to come to an end.

Into The Desert

The arrangement was that Grace, Imogen and I should meet our camel driver and his assistant ready for our adventure in the Thar Desert, the Camel Safari, at 8.00am. My note says "8.00 (9.30, more like)" which indicates that in fact the first part of the adventure didn't begin well. It wasn't so much that it didn't begin well, it just didn't begin at all. We were kept waiting for 90 minutes but it did get going eventually.

Everything is hit and miss. We could have organised a really crappy trip into the desert. It is hard to remember how we booked this one. I think that practically every hotel organises its own trips or has a hook-up with an agency in the city. Perhaps ours was the Pushkar Palace trip. When I think back now it probably was organised from the hotel. The advantage is that the hotel will look after your bags while you are away. If you go with another safari organiser you would have to book out of your hotel and take your bags with you and they would have to be stored somewhere less secure than a hotel.

One day all this will come flooding back. I might not be able to remember whether I might have had my tea or who the well meaning people are who seem to know me but I am sure I will be able to remember all the details of exactly when we were introduced to our camels, mounting them and riding out. It must have been that we went to one of the gates of the the walled city and mounted our camels there.

My camel was called Hetha and Grace had one called Lala. I don't remember what Imogen's camel was called but it was a bit frisky.



The beauty of this camel safari was the fact that we were in control of our own camels. I have seen and heard about trips where you get to ride on top of a camel but it is tethered to one in front or led by a man walking. On this trip we mounted the camels (no mean feat) got the reins and actually rode them ourselves. The reins were connected to the wooded peg through the animal's nose and a tug on the starboard side caused the ship of the desert to turn in that direction. Actually mounting the camel was not something that could be attempted while the camel was standing up. They are extremely high off the ground. The way you get on is to get the camel to sit down. Somehow or other the camel driver persuades the camel to kneel down and then to collapse its hind legs and on you get. There's a saddle with stirrups. A camel's back is pretty broad and far from comfortable. Then the camel gets up and it is quite a thing to remain on top of it because (if I remember it right) the camel gets up onto it's front knees then onto its hind legs so that you might easily fall off forwards and finally lurches itself into an upright position. Then there you are atop the thing.

Very Nice Rajasthani Music

It was Saturday 10 November 1990 and the recording of Sri Hari Bhawani was made near to one of the gates to the Fort that morning. I have described it and it accompanies the video in the earlier posting that introduced Jaisalmer. Anyway, here's the picture of the man and his instrument.

I am indebted to Rajtourism.com for at last being able to find out what this instrument is called: "The Rawanhathha of the Thori or Nayak Bhopas is probably the earliest instrument played with a bow, and this humble instrument could well be the precursor of the violin. It has two main strings and a variable number of supporting strings, with a belly of half coconut shell and a body of bamboo. The bow has ghungroos (bells) attached to it. The music is staccato and accompained by the syncopated singing of the Bhopa and the Bhopan."

Anyway the accoustics near to the gate of the Fort were great and the music he made resonated there. He was regular one man band on the Rawanhathha as the recording demonstrates. I made a second recording at the Fort Gate after Hari had fixed the bells back onto his bow. It is very similar to the first tune and displays all the man's skills. Listening to the recording now as I type I am still impressed.



The notes tend to indicate that I didn't actually do very much that day. It is very hard to think back but Grace had been with me when the recording was made and I dare say Imogen and Mandy were there too. It simply says "Shirting - Tailors - Chilling" and, on the next line, "Hari Hut - thing!".

This was a reference Hari's having invited Grace and I to visit his home. He was very insistent and having recorded his music we couldn't very well refuse. Hari's house was not really a house and although the notes say "Hut - thing!" it wasn't a hut either. That's probably what the exclamation mark signified.



What it was was a small area of the ground occupied by Hari and his wife and their small children (one pictured above). The boundaries of their patch of ground were delineated with nothing more substantial than twigs. Hari was very pleased that we came to visit. I'm sure that if his wife had known we were coming she would have baked a cake except that there was no oven, or kitchen, or anything at all. It makes you humble. They didn't seem to have anything except a patch of ground, the clothes they were wearing (Hari's wife's outfit is nonetheless splendid - a little overdressed for her surroundings perhaps) and Hari's magical musical instrument, the Rawanhathha.



They didn't bake us a cake but they did sing us a song (and the little child interjected with the odd squeal). On it's conclusion Hari pronounced what it was which was "Very nice Rajasthani song!" I suppose that Hari was the Bhopa and his wife the Bhopan but it could have been the other way round.

Despite the poverty of their surroundings Hari and his wife were, however, "making progress". This phrase in India meant they were having babies. In fact Hari's wife, aged 17, had already had two. The rate at which India was "making progress" was impressive. I refer you back to the electronic counter in Delhi ticking up towards 1,000,000,000.

The next note says "Hotel Trio - Music" and below that "Mandy sick". My Aiwa Recording Walkman was coming into its own and we enjoyed a good meal watching the while-u-eat cabaret featuring dancing, singing and a puppet show. The microphone was attached to the table cloth and I recorded five songs although the last recorded song ends abruptly because the tape ran out.

As I type I am recording the sounds into the Mac from my ancient tape deck, older even than the recordings themselves, using CD Spin Doctor and will preserve them for ever or at least until the disk gets corrupted. If I can I will add them to this blog posting.

The restaurant of the Hotel Trio was, if I remember it right, on the roof and exposed to sounds from the street below. Occasionally you can hear the odd two-wheeler (scooter) going past.

I thought I would check out references to the Trio on the web and there is a Frommer's review on the New York Times' website. It goes on about dishes with strips of boneless chicken but I don't remember meat being on the menu. Perhaps it was and perhaps that was why Mandy got sick. Apart from when I was in Kashmir I did stick to the vegetarian diet enjoyed by the vast majority of Indians.

The Frommer's review quoted by the New York Times says: "This unassuming eatery, with its open walls and thin cotton flaps providing a welcome through-breeze (not to mention views of the town and the Maharaja's palace), is Jaisalmer's top restaurant and one of the best in Rajasthan". It was dark when I went there so I don't remember much about any view. The review was published sometime in 2008 or shortly before but even then the cost of a meal is stated to be between only 75p and £2.25. That's pretty cheap and you can bet that it was a darn sight cheaper in 1990 (or else we wouldn't have gone there).

The Lonely Planet review says: "This upmarket Indian and Continental restaurant with a romantic setting under a tented roof is still the pick of Jaisalmer. There's reliably good veg and nonveg dishes, musicians play in the evening and there's a great fort view. Flies don't mind it either." So my memory is not playing tricks, it was indeed a rooftop restaurant. I didn't notice any flies but it was night time and perhaps that's why.

Mandy, who was Grace's friend who was either also from Guernsey or somewhere on the South Coast, did get sick later. She was homesick and lovesick too. She missed her "fella" as she called him. I think getting sick at the Hotel Trio restaurant was one of the things that convinced her that she should cut her trip short and go home.

At some stage during the day we must have booked our Camel Safari and I'm pretty sure that Mandy had decided that she didn't want to come. On the one hand it is a shame to trek all the way out the extreme West of Northern India, just the Thar desert between you and Pakistan and then not go out into the desert itself. On the other hand, I think it was handy because she stayed behind and must have looked after our clobber while we were out there.