Camel humps in Rajasthan

For many who come to Rajasthan, the magnificent medievil forts and palaces amongst the desert landscape is what its all about. In fact, it’s what makes Rajasthan a magnet for tour groups, giving the place a very different feel from other places we’ve been to around India. Unfortunately for us, ‘fort’ had quickly turned into a bit of a four letter word as the kids reached saturation halfway through our first fort visit. We did manage to get the kids to all of the big sites in the Pink, Blue and Golden Cities (Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer), through normal means of coercion and bribery. However, we’ve needed to get a little inventive by mixing in some activities like zip lining, block printing, a horse ranch stay and exploring the desert dunes by camel.

Even though we’ve all been under the weather with colds at various points over the last few weeks, we’ve had some of the most memorable moments of the trip so far.

There was more to see than there was to do in the ‘Pink City’ of Jaipur. This was at the City Palace.

The impressive Amber Fort in Jaipur. Climbing these steps in the heat with a heavy cold just because ‘they are there’ may not have helped my health…

Sofia in front of the pink Hawa Mahal, or Wind Palace

Iris and Sofia got their arts and crafts fix at a two day block printing workshop in a small village outside Jaipur.

The entire village of Bagru was an array of colours as local printers laid out their fabrics to dry. Some complex fabrics that require many layers and different processes can take up to one month to complete.

The printing blocks are carved in the village by special craftsmen who use wood that has aged over a year

Sofia using the ‘mud printing’ technique’ whereby the fabric is printed with mud before dying

Standard block printing

Our muddy cloths before dying

At one of the Indigo pits for Sofia’s rug

After drying and washing off the mud, the girls have the best kind of souvenirs

A gipsy community at the fringes of the village. They were given government land to settle down – some have stone houses, others still live in tents.

The not so pretty side of the printing business… like so much else in India, the waste water including all dyes and other chemicals end up unfiltered in the nearby streams…

Meanwhile, Liam and I were finding ways to occupy ourselves. There has barely been a time so far on this trip when kicking a ball around at a local park or beach hasn’t turned into a game of some kind.

From Jaipur we headed south to Udaipur at the serene ‘Krishna Ranch’. The owner, Dinesh, is a renowned breeder of Marwari horses – beautiful and very lively horses (sometimes too lively for the less experienced rider). Like almost anywhere in India though, it never really seems possible to truly get away from it all and in this case it was the nearby weddings with outward facing speakers cranked up at full volume that were blasting across the otherwise peaceful countryside.

A lot of time was spent just hanging at the ranch…

Iris went into town with the owner and ended up being invited to all four weddings happening in town that evening. It was a fascinating experience and so vastly different from western weddings.

Below the future husband’s mother and other female members of the family are given saris by the bride’s family.

The groom being bidden good bye by his mother on one of the Krishna ranch horses.

A proud grandfather

The bride at a different wedding. She was from a lower caste than the groom above and no smile ever crossed her face. The future husband wasn’t there for this part of the celebration. It is quite likely that she has only ever seen a picture of the man she is going to spend the rest of her life with – love marriages exist but aren’t the norm and if the village the spouse is from is far away pictures are all you can go by.

Weddings of these sizes involve some pretty serious cooking efforts behind the scenes

A much happier looking bride!

Then it was on to Jodhpur, the blue city, with another fort. We had to pull out all of the stops to get the kids fired up for this one…

A bit of zip lining did the trick!

There were six of them crossing the walls and the moat of the fort

The views from the fort of the blue city were impressive.

Little corner shop – always selling plenty of packets of ‘pan’ to chew which gives the local men black stained teeth.

Then it was on to the small desert town of Jaisalmer – The Golden City. The fort rises from the desert like a massive sand castle. This was the view from Kavi’s hostel

The next morning we left early on a desert safari…

Gearing up the camels for our three day adventure

The kids experience the awkwardness of being on a camel while it stands up for the first time

Honing the desert look

Our guides ‘Triple S’ and Sarub

For the most part riding the camels was much more comfortable and relaxing than horses

…With plenty of long stops for meals and masala chai

Sarub rescued this lamb who got separated from his flock

You travel all the way to do a camel safari in a remote desert in Rajasthan and the highlight of the whole trip for the kids is playing with ‘Cammy’, this little lamb. Next time we’ll just go to Lindale, our local Wellington petting zoo.

Rainbow, the gay camel, appreciating the beautiful sunset…

Why is it that food always tastes better when your out in the wilderness?

Our morning chai masala after being wrapped in a blanket of stars

Rolling chapatis with ‘Triple S’ and Sarub

The shepherd who owns Cammy came to thank us the next morning

This is Rainbow, the aptly named gay camel. We had a bit of excitement when Rainbow tried to mount his colleague, Romeo, who wasn’t receptive to receiving a second hump.

Now, to the casual by-stander it may have appeared a rather comic scenario to see a gay camel with rider on board attempting to get it on with his buddy. From the perspective of the rider, I can assure you that it was actually quite frightening! It was like riding a bull in a rodeo at full flight, except an extra metre or two off the ground. Romeo got the rougher end of the stick, so to speak, and ended up falling on the ground – luckily with no-one on board.

Liam got a bit spooked by the whole thing and opted to walk that day. I can hardly blame him!

The dunes were great to goof around in

The desert girl

A drinks stop at one of the local villages

Learning a new Indian version of 500`

A lot of the time was spent playing cards and watching desert life go by…

And with that, our three day safari came to an end…

Our love to Aotearoa. Every day that we travel, we feel fortunate and grateful to be able to return to such an incredibly beautiful, peaceful, diverse, tolerant, and compassionate country.