What is a desert safari

When I was recounting the travel story of Bikaner and the desert safari a friend of mine asked me in all curiosity the following question. “Is it not boring to travel for five days in a desert on the back of a camel and doing nothing at all”? I thought it was an interesting question and a useful way to begin the story of the desert safari.

Our original programme was to travel the desert through known contacts. S had a colleague/friend who knew people in Bikaner town. We had planned that through these friends we may be able to get a toehold in the surrounding villages. We dwelled on this idea for quite some time. But very soon we realized that luck played a major role in this elaborate chain and we only had a week’s time to spend in Bikaner. What if the villagers were hostile to us? What if we did not find the right village and ended up only traveling up and down? The doubts were getting to be a little nagging. In the meantime I began to search the net for travel diaries on Bikaner in particular and the Thar desert in general. The few travel diaries that I found were of people’s experiences of the desert through the desert safari. And some of them had very good things to write about the safari. Even though the accounts were few and far between it definitely piqued our interest. A quick search of Lonely Planet and the net enabled us to zero in on Vino Desert safari in Bikaner which promised to offer desert safaris. Now this seemed a good option of panning the desert. There was a promise of tents, dunes and villages which looked very inviting. A quick phone call to Vino also confirmed that the safari could offer us what we wanted and that too at reasonable rates. We promptly dropped our village belle’s contacts and settled for Vino’s desert safari. http://www.vinodesertsafari.com/A word about Vino. I must say that he was prompt and punctual in his responsibility towards us. We met him the day we arrived in Bikaner at the Bhairon Vilas Palace and settled the deal. We were to leave for the desert the next morning. Vinod has been organizing these safaris for the past ten to fifteen years and is very popular with tourists. Soon after meeting him we realized that he was serious about his job and also extremely efficient. He delivered what he promised. He promptly put us in touch with the guide, camels, cart and the men.

We reached the desert the next morning where the entire team was waiting for us. We felt a little sheepish that we had such an entourage following us. S embarked the camel while I was on the camel cart. The first view of the desert from atop a camel cart was stunning. S said that the view from atop the camel was even better. He said that he felt like a king. Silence all around except the small trinket bells on the leg of the camel, the sound of the moving cart and the occasional talk of our companions. It was a breathtaking silence. There were tiny dunes all over. Occasionally some people passing by. We had to reach the village Rashipur that afternoon for our lunch. It was the village of one of the camel men. Our first view of a desert village. There were no roads. Camels all over. Some old houses, mostly dilapidated. The village mostly had new houses. The new houses being a sign of the prosperity of the times. The villagers proudly showed us these new houses whereas we were intent on seeing the old ones. They took pride in their newness whereas we hankered after the old. We wanted a certain kind of village to greet us. It made us feel so selfish. It was a contradiction that ran parallel to our desires. We rested in an nearby house. The electricity was off. It was a still silent afternoon. Flies buzzing all around. The camels were resting under the tree, munching on the leaves. They had a certain peaceful coexistence with the flies. Children were playing under the trees around the camels. S was trying to capture it all in his camera. It was quite a harmonious moment.

We had four nights and five days. That evening we camped by the side of a maize field. The cook settled down immediately to cook the evening meal. It is amazing how the cart carries all the essentials. One can be stripped down to one’s basics. Basic food and shelter. The tent was set up. We then went and chatted with the owners of the field. The family was living there temporarily to tend to their fields. Some of them came to our camp site. We listened to the radio: the news, the songs and so on. The villagers drifted away and we finished our dinner. It was then lying on our backs and staring at the skies. It was a lovely cool night. There were no mosquitoes. Only dung beetles which were crawling all over. Not a very pleasant feeling.

Sleeping in the tent was a little unnerving. Throughout the night we were waking up to sounds of animals. In my rich imagination I thought it was jackals and panthers prowling around. But to my disappointment I was reassured that it was only stray dogs that were hanging around the campsite looking for tidbits and doing their own investigations.

The next morning we again set out after breakfast. There was really nothing to do. They would cook and we would eat. Then off we went to shit and pee in the fields. Having gone through the motions we set off for another day. The radio was our constant companion. Each busy with one’s own thoughts. We would stop here and there to speak to some villagers. We would pass villages where the camels would drink water from the troughs. It was doing nothing at all. The only important thought was a place to take a shower. Cool water on the head was all that I sought. Even as I am writing about it six months later, that scene is so vivid in my mind.

A word about our camp mates. Maharaj, Babu and Mange. Maharaj and Mange owned the camels. Maharaj was the local strong man with contacts far and wide in the villages. Mange also owned a camel an doubled as a cook. Babu spoke English and therefore the official guide for the team. His English was hilarious not because he spoke bad English. He had perfected the language as a response to the white tourists that he was constantly guiding. One of our nodes of entertainment was to make fun of his adaptation of English and to force him to speak in Hindi. Maharaj and Mange were the silent men, but locals in the real sense of the term. They earned their livelihood through tourism and also agriculture. The camels were a main source of their livelihood. A severe handicap for Maharaj and Mange was their language. They could speak only Marwadi and very little Hindi. That was how Babu showed his one-up-man-ship with them. By being part of such a camp, one has to acknowledge the subtle tensions running between them. At times I resented being a witness to it. But on was being drawn into it. We couldn’t be snobbish and look elsewhere. They were three and we were two. Not always we thought alike. Not always we liked what they did or they liked what we preferred. To come to an understanding in that situation was important.

It was 10 in the morning. The sun was still benign. We registered our request for a shower with Maharaj. He soon found a house in the fields where a Rajput family was living. I can never forget this encounter. The women were most interested in our arrival. Willingly they arranged water for a bath in their kitchen. They were so curious about my body, my clothes and the man that I was traveling with. It was wonderful to have a bath in a dark corner of their kitchen. They insisted that I wear my clothes in their presence. It was quite a sexual moment. I happily wore my clothes before their scrutinizing gaze. One of the women,a young Rajput woman with three children was the sexiest of the lot. She was a bundle of energy. I wanted to give her something to remember. I was not carrying anything extra apart from my clothes. I then pulled out my brand new panties from my case and gave it to her. I asked her if she wore them and then she showed the ones that she was already wearing. It was such a crazy kind of fun.

S was bewitched by her. Her head was completely covered. S wanted her to remove her dupatta. She also wanted to take it off but at the same time unsure about it. But I guess she finally relented and the outcome was a classical one. One of those beautiful women. Maybe S has to add his own take of that episode.

The safari thus proceeded from camp to camp. We camped four nights. One day was beside the maize field. He second day was atop a huge sand dune. The third day was in a scary shrubby field. Those dry white shrubs for miles around. The fourth day was again spectacular. We camped beside a small habitation. It had four huts, five families, about a dozen unruly kids and a pied piper. The story of that night requires a separate telling.