Into the Great Thar Desert

Never, ever go on a three-day camel safari into the desert while you are still getting over traveler's diarrhea.

Fortunately this was not a problem for us or the experience would have been much more ... messy.

-----------------------

Our camel trip was defined was silence and music.

"On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life."

The last song we heard before leaving Jaisalmer was America's "Horse With No Name."

"Neil Young?" Laura asked me.

"No," I said, explaining the context, Neil's lawsuit after the release of Harvest. I heard the words again for the first time. The song might have been written about a desert trip here. A city full of sound, a desert of wind, the anonymity of campfires and sky and sand.

A jeep took us out to old stone shrine(s) framed by wind power turbines, then to a smaller Jain temple full of idols with radiant eyes. There was a numerology chart so I sat with my notebook writing the Hindi number system with associated (Jain?) numerological symbology -- sun, swastika, lotus, lion. Then it was off to the camels. The driver spoke little English, so we enjoyed silence for the first time since arriving in India it seemed. Finally someone who did not want to talk to us. We could cocoon.

The driver left us with our guide and his young associates. Dadya was an older man, we guess around mid-40s. In any case he was desert through-and-through, dark and weathered with a wide smile. One of the young boys was Hansoo ("Like monsoon," I joked), the other I didn't catch. Dadya's English was very good, as was his Hindi, Maranthi, Gujarati, Tamil and Japanese (!). I wouldn't be surprised if he knew Spanish, French and Hebrew as well.

Not bad for an old desert man.

I tried talking to the boys in Hindi, but the people out in the Great Thar Desert only speak Maranthi (aside from children who know the following English: "hello," "school pen," "one chocolate," "one cigarette" -- there's something disarming about a 4-year old with no pants in a desert village who asks you for a cigarette). So I picked up what Maranthi I could.

daga = camel
goonga = sand beetle (EVERYWHERE, and the size of a large thumb. You wake up in the morning and a handful scurry out from underneath you.)
goongi = plural
didi = sun
pichineh = pen

adding -dya to a name is a sign of affection. Hence Dadya. Or Nidya, your humble narrator.
(is "-i" the plural? if we were in Rajathan longer I would spend more time figuring it out.)

It's difficult to write while on camel back and when you get off you're sore and tired and unwilling to write. And, at night, the sun -- your readily available light source -- goes down around the time you've recovered. So you practice talking and remember what you can but are mostly fascinated by how Dadya and Madya, another older guide who doesn't speak a word of English (aside from "chapati good?"; read: "you like the food?"), cook amazing food around a small campfire on gristled old cast-iron. Dal, rice, hand-made chapati (a flat bread that is also your utensil -- Ken, I need to teach you how to make this, you would greatly enjoy it). Oh, and chai. How do they make such good chai in the desert? It's a mystery, and one that you savor. My one regret is not getting a video of campire cooking. I did, however, get a video of a good long camel fart (that's for you, Matt & Goss).

So you lie out under the stars which is nice but honestly I see more in Maine on a regular basis. But still, it beats the city. And the fresh cool desert air is worth the trek. My lungs feel clear for the first time in ages.

And there's also the silence.

We awoke after the first night to an early sun. Rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit. A wild dog found us hidden behind a dune, curled up on our blankets and napped with us until we all arose for breakfast.

"Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt."

After awhile I began singing. First to myself, then out loud. "Me and My Uncle," as sung by Bobby Weir and the Grateful Dead. A nice long cowboy song that fit the scrub and the sand and the slow plod through the silence. I imagined touring the American southwest on horseback, a band of guitarists and mandolins singing our way across small towns in old-time style. Practicing harmonies as our horses trotted along.

A few times through the song and I picked up a new one. "Dark as a Dungeon." Something I've been singing recently at home. Then, inexplicably, a sailor's song: "Captain Kidd." I knew more of the verses to that one, and there are about twenty in the version I sing. Good way to kill a half-hour or so and get your mind off the saddle burn.

I badly wanted a guitar. Your legs are busy keeping balance, but your arms are free.

At a camel watering hole pit-stop a flock of boys surrounded us for pens and chocolate. We had none to spare, but when they discovered the little hand-held video recorder in my pocket the fun began. At first they were unsure. I had them stand a few paces off and recorded them tentatively waving hello. Then beckoned them over for playback.

Aha!

A few more takes of hello-waving, then we set up a stage and one started dancing.

"Bollywood," I called out.

He danced on. And danced, and danced. We found the Michael Jackson of the desert. He would run over, see the video, and run back to dance some more. His friend, meanwhile, became interested in my glasses. Another with my hat. I cautiously loaned them out.

Fortunately none of them ran off.

I started asking for words using the pointing technique. I caught a few, wrote them down.

Pen. Grab, grab, grab.

"School pen?"

"My school pen." I was not about to lose my G2 to the Great Thar Desert. G2 is sacred.

We tried drawing pictures, pointing and asking names. Sun, moon. The kids were good mimics, mimicking asking. Lots of verbs, no nouns. Dadya helped clarify later.

We left, plodded further through plants and birds and rocks and things. Peacocks. Gazelle. Goats. Sheep. Cow. Our dog friend followed us until we camped for lunch.

Rain appeared on the far horizon, so we broke camp and headed back for the safety of the huts in the valley near where we camped the first night. We arrived just before the rains broke and were joined by two couples from the UK. The first left, having to head back home in a driving storm. We were left with Katherine and Dave, a girl from London and a guy from Dublin. They had just met a few days before and were traveling together for a bit.

Katherine was a history teacher who had done a recent crash course in Hindi. We quickly hit it off and began comparing notes. She greatly expanded my repetoire, adding some important words and phrases.

aap ka nam kya-he? = what is your name?
mara nam ____-he = my name is ____
(-he indicates direct object)
kyum = why?

Dadya wandered over to our shelter, digging through packs for food supplies. He and his crew were in a hut working on food and chai.

"Kya mean what," he said (I think). "Kyum is how." He rattled off a few more, but my pen couldn't keep up.

Kitna? = how much?
Kitna paycee? = how much money? (paycee = money)

important haggling words:
bod megha = too expensive! (a good one; people respond to Hindi)
na-hee = no
ha = yes
acha = good (as in "that's good enough")
bus = enough (as in "leave me alone!")

Katherine and I compared notes on Hindi numbers. I had them written from the Jain temple, so she helped fill in the pronunciations.
1 = ech
2 = do
3 = teen
4 = cha
5 = panch
6 = chay
7 = saat (like Saturday, Saturn)
8 = aat (like German = acht)
9 = nau
10 = das

The more you travel the smaller the world gets.

It poured that night. No sunset or stars, but a gorgeous lightning storm. We watched it creep up on us, distant bolts striking closer and soon streaking across the sky. Hard to describe. Watch the lightning in Ghostbusters as Zuul arrives in NYC. It's something like that. Only majestically large and arching over your head.

We rigged up a light in our hut and stayed up with Katherine and Dave. Dave shared his beer. We compared notes on our travels. They're both here indefinately. Katherine quit her job in England, gave up her flat, is traveling until she needs more money at which time she'll find a place to teach abroad. India, Thailand maybe.

I am inspired. Why did I never consider this? It's so ... feasible. I never knew.

The more you travel the larger the world gets.

A night in a dusty hut, afraid of wild cows encroaching on our shelter, watching us ominously during flashes of lightning. The land is black, suddenly bright-lit, then black again. We laugh about Gary Larsen, then stare silently into the awesome storm. The UK pair retreat to their hut and we fall to sleep to camels snoring, shattering thunder, occaisonal wafts of sand on our faces and the lurking cows.

More rain the next day. We bunk in, work on crosswords, play cards, chat, laugh, drink chai. Talk about life, travels. Two Dutchmen join us. I miss their names (I keep thinking Peter -- both the same -- but that's not right). They'll be on our train tonight towards Agra. After lunch there is a promising break in the rain so we saddle up to return, leaving the Europeans behind.

The silence and music are gone. I am sore and tired of camel riding. Dadya and his young friend jabber away on the lead camel. After a short trek to the road -- too long -- we dismount.

"Your jeep meet you here," Dadya declares.

"Ok," I say, and promptly fall asleep on the blanket he lays out for us while Laura works on a crossword. Our desert adventure is pampered and plush, blankets and long breaks. I am too sore to complain.

I am in a deep dream when the jeep arrives. Laura wakes me, we jostle back to town and move into a high-end hotel for the night. A small luxury to recover. Soft bed. Hot-hot shower. The first hot water since arriving in the country.

"I've never seen you enjoy a shower so much," Laura laughs.

"Me neither," I sigh.

We are exhausted. Sleep is needed. We go out for dinner, I treat myself to a visit to a (legal!) bangh shop. Conversation is stilted, cranky. At the hotel I fall into the soft bed and sleep blissfully.

Today is much, much better. Well rested, packed, relaxed, able to write at a computer and digest our journey.

And now a long, long train ride to Agra and the Taj Mahal. Much traveling to come as we head out for Darjeeling.

One last note: during the safari a boy named Fareed joined us at the campsites to help with the fire and entertain the tourists. The first night out he sang "Frere Jacques" in some mix of French and Maranthi. When I recognized the tune I laughed and sang along in French. A girl from Amsterdam was at the fire the first night and sang along in Dutch.

As I write this some musicians prepare for a(nother!) wedding across the street from the internet cafe, blaring away on reedy pipes. After an hour or so of otherwise classical-Indian-sounding music, what do they burst out with? Frere Jacques.

The more you travel the more familiar the world becomes.

Americans should travel more. Leave your day jobs. Go see the world.

(I've been encouraging foreigners to visit America as well. And not NYC. But Oklahoma, Montana, Tennessee, Kansas. States that are well worth visiting, and could use exposure to the rest of the world.)

(Though maybe not the French. The snobbiest tourists I've seen have all been French -- no offence, Julie. At the bangh shop, a halting conversation with a nice French tourist.

"Speak English?"

"No," he answered.

"Spanish?"

He shook his head.

"Je ne parle pas Francais," I said sadly.

"Ah," he nodded. "French people are no good with language. Only know French, no more," he said.

"Ha," I laughed. "Same with Americans."

The more you travel, the more similar the world becomes.)