jaisalmer.
jaisalmer.
walking through the narrow lanes of the fort and the city with the havelis of the merchants. a bit too many tourist shops but selective perception helps to imagine...
thar desert camel trek.
news on tv: bomb blast at the ghats of varanasi during the evening ceremony at the ganges. 2 dead, 40 injured. very irritating, if you've been at the very place a week ago. lucky me.
jeep transfer into the desert. it's rather a steppe than a desert libya-style: scrubs, gravel and sand instead of dunes. alright, there's different types of desert. the camel trek starts. i ask for the slowest, friendliest, most peaceful one. 'they're basically all the same means'. for me that sounds like a lot of hidden information. despite intense observation of the guides and trying to copy them, i have a feeling i just don't look cool on my camel when it starts to gallop. no clue if camels have humour but maybe there's an internal competition going on: maximum bouncing of tourist on camel back.
relaxed lunch break with frothy tea, freshly baked chapatti.
arrival at a little village in the middle of nowhere, the people don't seem to happy to see us. i wonder why they take tourists here instead of leaving the people alone.
finally dunes. they're not as huge as in the sahara but dunes are dunes. so i go and find my own dune and watch sunset with yes 'tales from topografic oceans' as a perfect background music.
campfire in the evening. why is it that the french just can't be cosmopolitically correct: half the group is french and rest is from all around the world. and these guys speak french with us!. long live egalité!
returning to jasalmer with high speed (in my opinion): i haven't really gone through a learning curve. no matter what i do, i still bounce around on the camel. i will never pass a 'lawrence of arabia' casting. so i watch a bouncing landscape.
finally, i book absurdistan bus tours
returning to udaipur with the bus. haven't i complained that i don't experience hilarious and absurd situations anymore on my trips and that everything runs so smoothly these days?
you ask for it, you get it:
bus arrives early. i move into my sleeping compartment and watch the scenes at the bus station. after a while i want to close the window. the window. the window? where is my window? something is missing. the window. i have a chat with the driver and his assistant.
- 'no window in my compartment. where's the window?'
- ???
- 'window. that thing that separates the inside of the bus from the outside. in most cases fabricated of glass. come often as type 'closable''
- 'broken.'
- 'i see. that happened on your way to jaisalmer right now? or did it vanish 2 minutes ago?'
- 'broken. we fix it'
- 'brillant!'
here comes the assistant with the solution - i rather call it a workaround: he attaches a blanket to cover the whole...
- 'is that your bug-fix?'
- 'fixed!'
i really like the serious and proud expression he puts on. two options: either he really believes what he says. or the's a great actor.
i do to a quick acceptance test. i tug at the blaket. surprise, it comes off.
- 'mediocre idea. miserable execution. not fixed. you're not seriously expecting me to make this trip in a compartment whithout windows? where's my window?'
- 'seat? '
the first intelligent reaction to the problem. all other compartments are occupied. it's seats..before accepting the alternative there's the traditional, classic, expected, necessary, elaborate, multi-langual and partly loud discussion regarding the refund due to not delivered service... but i have to admit i liked their 'what do you mean not delivered service' face.
- ' different bus in jodhpur. with window.'
yeah sure.
moving to the seats means moving to the locals, that has its advantages: more entertainment. especially in these modern times. everybody has his own mp3 player, unfortunately the indian types don't come with earphones. where on earth can you hear so many different songs at once?
my neighbour is curious. not the first time i'm asked these questions in asia...'where do you came from...where's you're wife...how many kids...how many girlfriends did you have (that questions i asked him back and never got an answer. how come?)... what do you work...how much do you earn..'. so i come up with some stories to meet his expectations. ...the girlfriends were highly intelligent stunners (not made up), my wife is the best on this planet (would absolutely be true), i have five perfect kids (maybe not a realistic numbers), ...i have to admit the more i talk the more creative i get. i even have a job i've never heard of. the tricky part is keeping track of the ages and names of my wonderful children.
jodhpur. where the bus was supposed to be changed. not! but the quality of the wordaround is dramatically increased. blanket is replaced by cardboard...
maybe the day was not as relaxed s expected. but for some reasons i had a lot more fun than expected, too. otherwise there's no story to tell and nothing to laugh about.