Riding a Camel in Jaiselmer

Riding a camel is not quite as easy as it looks when you see Lawrence of Arabia loping across the sands in a movie.

When we were in Jaiselmer, our tour included a late afternoon ride across the sand dunes on a camel.  We had been in the Thar Desert for some time now, the third largest desert in the world after the Sahara and the Simpson in Australia.  Most of the desert has been rocky desert and, after the best monsoon in years, it has been uncharacteristically green. However, there is a small area just outside Jaiselmer with dunes. 

Jaiselmer is a major tourist magnet. Jaiselmer itself boasts a huge fort on the hill, like many places we've visited, still populated by 5,000 people inside that fort. It had many havelis (mansions) with richly carved ornamentation. It was the first place we really felt the press of tourists, as we met many tour buses on the road to and from Jaiselmer, intermingled with the many army vehicles (Jaiselmeer is only 100 miles from the Pakistan border and the military is quite beefed up here).  Many of the tours were domestic tourists.  Jaiselmer is the setting for many Bollywood movies, and that draws Indian tourists the way Salzburg draws fans of The Sound of Music.

 
So, you've been waiting to hear about that camel ride. We had seen camels beside and on the road for a few days as we headed west in Rajasthan, but at the Sam Dunes, as they're known, there were hordes of camels, with their brightly colored saddles and streams of people setting off single file to the dunes.

Our guide picked out a camel for me and then led me around the left side to mount the camel, which is sitting low on the ground with his knees folded under him. Suddenly the camel jumped up, much to the dismay of the guy holding the reins, not to mention me!!!!! So, on to choose another, hopefully calmer, camel. I gingerly sat in the saddle, and the camel straightened his back legs. At this point, one is perched precariously at about a 70 degree angle pitched forward toward the ground. The camel then rockily gets off his knees and stands up straight and you breathe a sigh of relief that you haven't pitched forward off the beast. 

The most uncomfortable thing is that the camel is very wide, and the saddle holds you in a tight position, so your legs are spread very wide, resulting in a lot of pressure on your hips if you're built like me. Anyway, we got off to a lumbering walk, accompanied by two guys, one young and one ancient, holding the reins. 

Except for when the camel was going downhill, or when he lowered his head to crop some brush, it was relatively comfortable swaying ride, except for those darned spread legs.  So I decided to call it a day and head back to the 'camel parking lot'. Immediately, the two guys, both the young and the old, whipped out their mobiles to call back to our driver who came out partway to meet us and put me out of my misery - quite literally. Quite an experience all in all.

Highway Driving in India

It's said that you need three things to drive in India: a good horn, good brakes, and good luck.

Horns are used incessantly in India to indicate that you are about to overtake and virtually never to show impatience or irritation. In fact, trucks usually have signs on the back requesting you to 'Blow Horn' or 'Horn Please'. A rear view mirror seems to be the appendix of an Indian vehicle, a vestigial organ of no discernible current use.

Turn indicators are also vestigial organs. However, manual turn indicators are sometimes used. On the busy road connecting Mumbai to Delhi we were trapped behind a long line of transport trucks which our driver deftly passed, often a few at a time. We were puzzled by the man hanging off the left hand side of a big touring bus in front of us standing on the running board. (Remember we're driving on the left hand side here). We finally figured out his task; after the big bus had overtaken a truck, his task was to warn trucks that the bus was coming back in to the left lane and the truck had to slow down to let him in.

Brakes are important because you never know when you're going to have to slow to a crawl for a piece of road that has been completely washed out by the monsoons or for a speed bump which may appear even in a 4-lane highway.  And then there are cows, sheep, goats, bullocks, camels, water buffalo, pigs, chickens, and dogs which may amble, stand or lie in front of you. Then there are the vehicles overtaking a car from the other direction and straying into your lane. The oncoming vehicle is expected to slow down to give the driver time to return to his own lane, or perhaps take to the shoulder to let him keep coming. Size matters in these contest. Everyone gives way to buses or trucks. Then come jeeps, cars and vans like ours. The auto-rickshaws are lower on the totem pole, and motorcycles and bikes bring up the rear.

Our driver was always alert, cautious and we were very thankful to have such a competent driver in these conditions.

Most of the accidents we saw were overturned vehicles, not too surprising, given that so many vehicles are wishfully loaded - 'I wish I had a vehicle that could legitimately carry this much stuff'. 

Whereas in Canada a pedestrian can be fined for jaywalking, in India, pedestrians always have right of way.  Simply walk into the road, raise your hand just above waist height and give a gentle to and fro waving motion and the cars (mostly) stop for you.

Driving - and crossing streets - in India is an adventure!

** Apologies to anyone who has read before.  I accidentally deleted several posts and am restoring them

Why Do Cows Lie in the Road?

Coming to India, one has been prepared to expect cows on the road. The odd one, here and there. What I hadn't expected was the sheer number of cows, on the streets and alleys in large towns and small, and on the highways. And not just walking around - lying in the middle of the road! Rather dangerous, one might think, even in India where cows are sacred animals and carefully avoided. 

The explanation? In the extreme heat, some of the chemicals from the asphalt are emitted from the pavement, and those chemicals deter mosquitos and other bugs.

** Apologies to anyone who has already read this - I accidentally deleted a few posts and am now reposting them.

Divali in Mumbai

If you look up Divali on Wikipedia, it is described as a festival of lights honouring good over evil, celebrated by both Hindus and Jains.  There are five days to the festival, each with separate significance.

But in Mumbai, everyone we asked described Divali as the festival to honour Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity.  This festival has been highly commercialized because it is considered an auspicious time for important purchases and proper observances will set you up for a prosperous upcoming year.  Hence we saw huge billboards and newspaper ads encouraging people to get out there and shop: cars, furniture, home renovations, but most of all gold, both as a jewelry and an investment.

Divali is called the Festival of Lights but it seemed to me it could equally be called the Festival of Flowers.  Buildings and cars were festooned with flowers, mostly marigolds, and rangolis were painstakingly shaped with flower petals on floors everywhere.   Markets were full of clay saucers, to be filled with tiny candles floating in oil, and placed decoratively inside or outside buildings, or within rangolis.  We saw a rangoli etched out with glittery powder and sprinkled with candles on the pavement in front of one shop, which was very pretty as it sparkled in the night.

We had spoken to some hotel staff about Divali and when we arrived back from breakfast, we were greeted with wide conspiratorial smiles.  When we opened the door to our room, we were surprised and delighted to see that our room had been decorated for us, with a rangoli, and an elephant (representing Ganesh, the elephant of good fortune) decorated with flower petals.

Divali lasts for five days and Mumbai is reputed to celebrate most vigorously, especially with fireworks and firecrackers.  We were at Marine Drive to enjoy the first night of Divali.  Marine Drive is a boulevard that borders the bay in Mumbai, with wide sidewalks for strolling and a cement wall for sitting to appreciate the view.  It gracefully curves around the bay and is dubbed 'The Queen's Necklace' at night. 

On Divali along Marine Drive there were clusters of people were setting off things every few feet - six-foot high sizzlers on the ground, noisy crackers that startled you with loud bangs, beautiful fireworks shot into the sky.  The cacophony was continuous and the air was filled with smoke.  You had to keep your wits about you, as you might be standing looking at one display, to find another being lit right behind you, or perhaps a dud firework that had been shot high in the air coming to land near you.  I found this short video on YouTube which captures the randomness of the firecrackers and fireworks very well.

It was such a contrast to Canada, where everything is so controlled, with planned fireworks by municipal authorities, let off by certified fireworks people, and with the crowds a specified safe distance from the point of lighting.  Here very young children would dash up to the fireworks with sparklers to light them up.  It was up to the crowd to be alert and stay clear of the explosions on all sides.  It was similar to the Duresha celebrations where giant effigies 90 feet tall were burned, and people were standing very close.  The effigies were supported by guy wires to force them to fall in place, but any surprises would have been quite devastating to the crowd.  It was great to be part of something so different. 

One lovely custom of Divali is that on the third day, brothers are supposed to visit their sisters.  The sister ties a rakhi, a colourful thread, around the wrist of the brother, signifying the strong bond between brother and sister.  The brother brings a gift to the sister.  One of our guides said that he had given his sister a card.  That seemed a bit modest compared to what we'd heard about.  It turned out to be a credit card!  His sister is studying in university and he had offered to help her, but she had declined preferring instead to earn her own money as a tutor, he said proudly.  I think he is quite confident his credit card won't be abused.  In a society of multi-generation families, where the wife lives with her husband' family, this custom to strengthen the bond between brothers and sisters is quite heartwarming.