I went on a tour with a group called Escape Delhi. They organized a three day trip which extended into four. We left on a bus last Thursday night around 10pm, hoping to arrive at 8am in Bikaner. We didn't get there until about 1 or 2 pm! There was some bad accidents on the highway and our bus driver decided to go down some rural, bumby roads for several hours instead. It was my first overnight bus, sitting in the back, can't recline.... but im not complaining.
There were a lot of great people in the group, about 25 in all. Some lived in Delhi and some were also visiting like me. We arrived and had to take the camels to our camping spot, which was about 30 mins. I think one person fell during this time, with many more to follow throughout the next two days. The camels are very tall and its quite a feat to stay on while they get up and down.
We had fresh food cooked for every meal by these great chefs :) They also made good chay. We were able to purchase Soda and Beer too. At night we had a group of musicians come and sing for us around a campfire. We got into some crazy dancing....
We spent the night in tents on the sand which was great and totally in my element. It felt great being out there. Some were not used to being so rugged though. On Saturday we were to take a 3 or 4 hour ride on the camels to another camp spot. One girl in our group took a bad fall however as we were getting ready to depart. The camel started to rise before she was fully on, and she hung on trying to get on but let go and fell about 7 feet straight onto her back. It was not fun to watch. We had to call a doctor in and she went to the hospital. Fortunately nothing was broken and there were no major injuries, just some bruised bones and muscles in the lower back. We went on the the next site as planned and she met up with us later that evening for more music around the fire.
On Sunday we took jeeps back into town and went to what is called, the Rat Temple... yes, it is a temple, housing thousands of free-roaming rats....
We left the Rat temple and headed back to Delhi, we were supposed to get back around 10pm Sunday night, but due once again to India roadways and accidents, we pulled in about 5am Monday morning, and I took a rickshaw back home and went to bed. I went to a World Cup Cricket Match that day as well. We were not allowed to bring any cameras in so I have no photos of it, but it was really cool to check out a world cup game. Cricket is a cool game that I have been picking up and I hope to see a bigger following in America in the future. The game I went to took about 8 hours, but it was great to just relax and watch as I was extremely tired and beat from the Camel Trip........
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Not a Bad Ride.... wish I had my EAP shirt on for this one...
photo by Nathan Steele (Escape Delhi) |
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| Camel Crew! |
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| Camp1 in the morning. pretty desolate landscape. but looks can be deceiving. |
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| Dog Dune |
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| CARLSBERG is the best beer out here. We also had the usual suspects - Kingfisher and Haward's 5000. There is an excellent rum here called Old Monk which I had for the first time. It mixes well with soda or Chay :) |
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| My Camel and Driver... cant remember his name, but took good care of me. |
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| A walked around our 2nd campsite and found this little hut. |
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| photo by Nathan Steele (Escape Delhi). He clicked this one I was walking back from the hut I found. |
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| A sunset at the horizon. In the Delhi the Sun sets about 10 degrees above the horizon due to pollution.... |
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| Finally a good night sky. This is just a minute exposure, wide open with a high iso. The Milky Way can been seen faintly. Some of the people on the trip had never yet seen the Milky Way :( I'm glad they got a glimpse. |
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| Light Painting |
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| Sunrise at Camp2, there was a nice layer of fog when I woke up, and snapped a few. |
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| This is the Rat Temple in Bikaner, a genuine rat sanctuary full of.... rats. We stopped here on our way home. |
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| I had to watch were I stepped, these critters were not intimidated by us. |
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| All the Indians were feeding and praying to these little critters. It was amazing. Some people seemed to be living there out in the back... and they were cooking food.... hmmmm |
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| Rat Art |
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| Most of the gang from the group and some musicians. We had to take shelter under the canvas as wind and rain dampened things for a few hours, but we still enjoyed ourselves. |
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| Studying Hindi.... photo by Nathan Steele (Escape Delhi) |
