How many camels can you get for a motorbike????

Today is a special day...it's A's birthday!!!! And Happy Birthday Carl!!!! (he shares the same day :)

Ah, bliss....we had such a good time on camel back. We both found it very hard to say goodbye to Sarjan, Pepsi and Tara and get in the jeep this afternoon :(

It all started early on Thursday and it didn't start well! We got up to get cleaned up, packed up, checked out and arrive for our "camel safari" meeting time of 7:30am. There was no hot water at 6am...neither of us bothered to check on the hot water supply when we checked in - they said hot water, they didn't say exactly when. A remembers them saying until 9pm, so it must start sometime in the morning....nothing was coming out of the faucet at 6am except cold water so we had cold baths (ooooo, that's chilly! :) Well, that made things faster (we do tend to "appreciate" a hot shower :) and we arrived at the meeting place - Sunset Cafe - at 7:10 and it was not yet open so we wandered around the neighborhood.

Someone working a shop told us that it was definitely open now (we knew it was shut, we were just there!) so we went back and the place next door said they should be open...so they pounded on the door and told them to wake up!!! :) A few minutes later the very freshly awake young men let us in the cafe and went at sat at the rooftop tables. We ordered 2 pots of coffee because in our experience a pot is about 2 cups...at this place a pot is about 3 large mugs! Yikes, we had a lot of coffee and not a lot of time to drink it! Handily, everyone else in our group was late in arriving so we got most of the coffee down our necks before we headed out (sheer luck, I say :).

A and I were on the 3 day plan and the other 4 were on just an overnight. There were 2 women from the UK travelling together and 2 Israeli women traveling together. We all walked down to meet the jeep an make the trip out to meet the camels. We all started chatting on the ride - A in front (her potential for car sickness always nabs her the best seat :) with one of the UK chicks and I sat in the back with everyone else. I was chatting to the other UK chick, a police office from Sheffield. Soon we stopped and there were only 2 camels...there were 6 of us, hmmm. Then they said it was the 2 on the 3 day trip, so A and I piled out with our packs and the others went on. We were left with one camel man and 2 camels.

The camels were introduced as Tara and Pepsi and the camel man as Sarjan. We loaded up and moved em' out - A was on Tara, I was on Pepsi and camel man was on foot. Being an experienced horse person I had no problems getting on the camel - they get down on their tummies and they are fairly easy to climb onto (and once you are comfortable, to throw yourself up on...please do not be dyslexic when reading that :). A is a bit more on the height challenged side and Tara is a bigger camel than Pepsi, so she needed a bit of assistance and Sarjan is probably used to being of assistance in this situation so we had success - we were both on the camels. When a camel gets up it pushes it's backside up first and then gets off it's front legs (it goes down just the opposite - onto the knees, then drops it's butt and then settles to the ground). There is one small space of time when the camel's butt to head angle is very steep and when you are not ready for it catches you by surprise - no, neither of us fell off, but you can bet we were both laughing as the camels got up for the first time :)

I should mention now, before it becomes necessary, that both Tara and Pepsi are boy camels with all their accompanying bits. Tara is 10 years old and Pepsi is 8...camels live about 25 years...these boys are very much alive and it's camel breeding season. All the camels in our group were boys to prevent any....problems :)

Neither of us ever having been on a camel, the first few minutes we were both a bit tentative. Camels are controlled by a peg in their nose - when it's a baby they pierce the nose on both sides and leave a wooden peg in to let it heal over. When it comes time to break the camel (for riding or cart pulling) they are about 3 years old and a peg that looks something like a giant thumbtack is pushed from the inside out - the disk on the inside and the pin pointing out. Then a string is attached to the pin end and then a rope (it goes up around the neck and back to the peg) to the small string so that you have reins, just like on a horse. We rode along for about 45 minutes and then hooked up to the rest of the group on their camels and then we rode on to the lunch stop where we all got off (no one fell off, but there was a lot of laughter :) and reacquainted ourselves. The other group had 2 camel men and there were 5 camels (the 3 camel men shared one young camel in training - one riding and 2 walking).

Lunch was excellent! Chai, curry cooked over an open fire and lots of chapatis :) Then it was back on the camels for more riding! That is when A had a bit of a problem getting back on her camel and ended up hanging upside down from a half standing up camel :) Probably a little of A not moving quite fast enough and a lot of Tara jumping the gun to get up before his passenger was firmly seated....it was amusing nonetheless! And I will say it never happened again.

The scenery was gorgeous!!!!! and later on that leg of the ride we came to a water trough where there were many female camels. We not only got to see the camels hoover up large quantities of water (which is cool to watch :) but we also got to see 2 of the camels (one of them happened to be mine!) get into the mating ritual. The mating ritual of a male camel involves arching the neck, ignoring everyone, including the rider and the camel man :), and blowing an enormous skin flap bubble out the side of their mouth while making some interesting noises...being female I am not sure that I understand why any female would find this attractive, but Pepsi seemed to think he was *the* camel of the desert and all the babe camels would be flocking to his lovely display of what A calls his goiter :) It was humorous.

Ok, kids...more on this later, we are getting thrown out!!!!! Goodnight and we'll have more from Bikaner! Photos, too...if the connection permits!