Cow Attacks and Camel Treks

PHOTO ALBUM - Manali, New Delhi, Jaisalmer

As part of our plan for taking a break from the India monsoon heat, we spent a week in Manali, a pleasant tourist town in the Kullu valley in the “foothills” of the Himalayas.  At 2000m elevation, we enjoyed comfortable days and cool nights, which was perfect for hikes during the day, reading on the porch of our guesthouse with fine views, and a good night’s sleep afterwards. We hiked almost every day we were there, but sometimes never got to our destination, the elusive Solang Nullah. Supposedly this ski resort town (yes, you can actually snow-ski in India) is 11 km from Old Manali, an easy 2 hour walk according to the guide book.  However, in three separate attempts to walk there, we either ended up on trails to village houses, cow trails to the meadows for grazing, or in our final and most successful attempt, in some other nice village two hours walk from Manali.  We blame our inability to find our destination to a lack of maps, a complete absence of signs on the tangled network of foot and cattle trails, and because asking someone is only dependable until you hit the next crossroads (or in the case of one group of women, not dependable at all since they all motioned in multiple directions).  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the scenery and exercise. The most interesting thing that happened in our week in Manali was the cow incident on the trail from Vashisht, a village on the other side of the river from Old Manali.  We were walking along and came across a woman herding her goat and cow along the narrow path. To give the livestock some room I moved over to my right, which unfortunately, was the side of a six foot drop off beside the path. The cow, with a maliciousness I never knew a cow was capable of, proceeded to use his head and horns to push me off the side.  It was definitely intentional; he did the same thing to Brian before me, except Brian was smart enough to have moved toward the wall-side of the trail. Luckily, my backpack strap got caught on a tree branch keeping me hanging upright and from falling farther down the hill, and all I suffered was a scraped up elbow. However, I haven’t been able to look at a cow without suspicion since – and there are many in the narrow alleyways, streets, and trails in India.



Our next destination was Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan. This involved a day in Delhi between the bus from Manali and train to Jaisalmer, and unfortunately, Delhi was just as hot and muggy as it was the first time we were there.  We spent part of the morning at the Jama Masjid, a beautiful 17^th century mosque that holds up to 25,000 people and offers some great views of the city from one of the minarets.  We probably stayed for only an hour or so, mostly because I was suffocating in the heat under all the clothes I was wearing  - I had on an ankle length skirt and loose-fitting ¾ length sleeve top, but they also felt it necessary to give me a robe to wear on top of that, which turned out to be not because I was inappropriately dressed for the mosque, but so they could make an easy 50 rupees off me for the ‘cleaning fee’, which I was told about when I turned in the robe. Seeing as only tourists were given the robes, even though there were actually less conservatively dressed Indian women there, as well, I’m convinced it was a scam. However, I would totally feel like a jerk trying call someone out on it in a mosque…which they probably know and are taking advantage of.

After leaving the mosque, we were desperately looking for an air-conditioned place to get into to cool off, and found that these aren’t too prevalent in Old Delhi. We ended up in a Mc…wait for it….Donald’s.  Although the Maharaja Mac (veg, of course) and McSpicy Paneer were tempting, we settled for a couple ice cream cones to cool us off.  We were able to find a couple other air-conditioned restaurants throughout the day, and only managed to feel a little disgusting by the time we got on the train. Our day in Old Delhi reminded me again of how many people there are in this country - walking down the sidewalks of Old Delhi was almost enough to make a person claustrophobic!

Then it was on to Jaisalmer. I’ve been really excited about this part of the trip because Jaisalmer is a popular place to go on a camel safari. We’d ride camels through the desert during the day, cook dinner over the fire at night, and sleep on the sand dunes under the stars. How romantic does that sound??  And believe me, it started out pretty nice – Brian and I were set up with another American, Zach, and headed out on a jeep for an hour into what really felt like the middle of the desert.  They hooked us up with some turbans for sun protection (Brian can pass for an Arab, now, and we probably could have snuck him over the nearby border of Pakistan), and introduced us to our camels – Rocket for Brian, Tiger for me, and Lelu for Zach. Chewbacca might have been a more appropriate name for Zach’s camel because  that is how he sounded…or Pigpen from Charlie Brown because of the swarms of flies and mosquitoes harvesting in his filth.  Really Lelu just looked old and arthritic, like he could keel over and die any time.  So Brian and I were happy with our camel assignments.  I hopped up on the saddle, and got quite a thrill when the camel got up - they lift their back legs, hang out for a few seconds, then lift their front legs. Getting down is the opposite and the camels just seem to fold right up on the ground so you can easily step right off.  It’s that few seconds between when they’re up on back legs and down on the front legs that’s a bit freaky, because you’re off the ground at a funky angle looking down…it took me a few times to get used to it, and I still always had to brace myself before getting up and down each time.

We set out into the desert and after about an hour took a break when we reached a village. At this point, the excitement of camel riding was beginning to wear off,  as my inner thighs were on fire. We got off the camels and hobbled, bow-legged, around the village as kids swarmed us asking for school pens, chocolates, and rupees (this was commonplace at every village we went to…some kids even start asking for us to give them our rings, watches, and hats…eventually we opted out of stopping at villages to avoid this). After the village we rode another half hour or so and stopped for lunch (again, we were all more than ready to take a break from the camel).  We set up some blankets in the shade and our camel drivers, Piru and Mr. Dinglee, unloaded the camels and set them out to graze. They brewed us up some excellent chai tea, and cooked up a delicious lunch of spicy vegetable curry and thick chapattis. We took a long rest so we wouldn’t ride in the heat of the day, and set out around 4 pm for another hour and half of riding (which is about the most camel riding I could take at one time).  We arrived in the dunes of the Thar Desert, the “real desert”, according to our drivers, which is where we were going to camp for the night. Lo and behold, about three minutes after we arrived, a man appears out of nowhere with a bag of ice-cold sodas and beer for sale.  After drinking hot water (“ice-hot” water as our guide Piru says) for most of the day, this was a most welcome site…our camel drivers said that we were quite lucky he came by, but we were pretty sure a cell-phone call was made in advance. Yes, there was unlimited cell phone reception in the desert. We’ve observed everywhere we’ve been in Asia that the cell phone coverage is everywhere, from the poorest villages to up in the mountains, unlike back home where calls are dropped routinely.

Contrary to our expectations, the desert is not immune to the monsoon. We heard from locals that Jaisalmer had more rain this year than it had seen in the last four years, and the amount of green scrub scattered through the desert and humidity in the air certainly reflected that. In fact, we even got to experience a desert rain squall a little our first night. Right after dinner, it started sprinkling, then sprinkling a little harder…it only lasted 15-20 minutes, but it was enough to get us damp, get our sleeping blankets wet, and bring out the dreaded mosquitoes. It ended up being the worst night of sleep that both of us have had on this trip. Imagine laying on wet blankets in humid, breezeless air, with mosquitoes buzzing in your ear all night long. By the time the sun came up, we barely noticed the nice sunrise and were all lamenting that we should have opted for the 2 day, 1 night safari instead of the 3 day, 2 night safari.  It was what it was, though, so we just laughed it off, hoped for better weather for day two, and started our day with a hearty breakfast of chai, porridge, toast, papaya, and eggs that had been sitting in the sun the entire first day (coincidentally, Brian and I have since experienced our first “Delhi-belly” issues since we’ve been in India). Day two was similar to day one; we rode on camels to Piru’s village and had lunch at his house. We met his sisters, who kindly brought us some fresh goat milk for the chai tea (Piru had been using powdered milk).  Although it made for some really delicious chai, we think it may have contributed to the aforementioned stomach issues.  We had one awkward moment where his sister asked to see my wedding band that I bought in Thailand when we first arrived. I took it off to let her see it, not expecting that the next thing she would say was “Me?”, indicating I would give it to her. It’s a very cheap ring, but it is my wedding band, so I was fumbling through trying to explain through Piru why I didn’t want to give it away. She understood and it was fine, but then later there were village kids actually trying to pull the ring off of my finger, making me wonder when it became acceptable in India to ask for (or demand) that tourists give away their possessions?

The second night of sleep was better than the first, although I think it was only because we were more prepared for the mosquitoes and we were so tired from lack of sleep the previous night.  Brian “invented” the technique of tying the turban around his eyes and ears to act as a mosquito net which, according to him, was a brilliant act of ingenuity of using the limited resources we had out in the desert.  After waking to another beautiful sunrise, day three was a short day –after breakfast (which included the eggs that have now been well above room temperature for 2 days now), we had about 2 hours of riding, lunch, then a jeep would take us back to Jaisalmer.  We hadn’t seen any other tourists at our first camp site, but the second night there were quite a few other safaris camping in the same area, although everyone was spread out enough we still felt pretty isolated.  However, all the safaris were headed toward the same lunch area and jeep pick-up point, and Piru and Mr. Dengly, being the great camel drivers they were, were determined to get us there the earliest so we’d have our pick of the few shady spots.  This involved a lot of running on the camels, resulting in further butt-soreness from the constant bounce-bounce-bounce on the saddle.  We did get what looked like the best lunch spot, though, so I can’t complain too much.  The arrival of the jeep after lunch was a welcome site – it meant we were out of the sun, no longer smelling camel farts, and quickly to a much needed shower.

So camel trekking was not quite as great as I had built it up to be in my mind, but without a doubt it’s an experience I will always remember.  I have a feeling that it would’ve been much more comfortable in about a month from now, as India starts entering its fall/winter season with the desert drier and cooler.  I would definitely recommend to anyone if you get an opportunity to ride a camel, try it out – just maybe don’t do it for three days in September in India after the wettest monsoon in four years.

There’s more to Jaisalmer than camel trekking; we also were able to spend time in its impressive and beautiful fort. Originally built in 1156, the sandstone walls now house temples, a palace, and a variety of restaurants, hotels, and shops. People even still live within the fort today.  It has a labyrinth of streets that usually lead to a viewpoint of Jaisalmer from high on the fort walls, but it’s small enough that you can’t really get lost. We enjoyed touring around the fort in the days before and after our trek.

We are now on our final stretch in India, and it’s going to be a busy one. We’re hitting the Taj Mahal, Khajuraho, and Varanasi in our final week before crossing the border to Nepal. We should see some incredible sites in this last week, but I have a feeling that between the heat, the touts, and the children demanding rupees for pictures (all of which we’ve been fairly warned about and are supposedly the worst in India at these sites), we’ll be quite ready to cross that border.