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.