day 1 camel safari 31/3/05 We all met up and went for breakfast at the german bakery, which was shut so we all had biccies and bananas. We got in the jeep and after we seemed to have driven round in circles headed off to the desert. Our group included two more english, simon and ryan, an irish couple Graham and Caroline, Joe the oz, Milanie the american, and later Nic, Ellen and Christine an english family. We had two adult and one kid camel drivers who walked as we rode. We got to the desert around 11am and were introduced to our camels, mine was a baby, 6 yrs old called Calu and Ians was an older larger 9yr old called Raj, they both seemed ok as camels go. I was still quite nervous at this point and dreading the first mounting experience. Luckily having the smallest camel meant he was easy to get on and had a nice temperement, well behaved and farly comfortable as he couldnt carry lots of stuff. Ians had a tendancy to pick his own route but all east to control as you would be with a reign attached to a nose peg!. We had chosen the company run by camel drivers who own the camels so its in their interest to treat them well. We stopped after around an hour for the camels to drink, getting off was a bit tricky. The movement of a camel id fairly slow but your inside thighs and the mens sensitive bits get a battering, especially when going down hill. We walked through desert which is mainly hard sand and fairly flat but with many small bushes and cacti, which we had to forcefully make our camels avoid. Not unlike the people here they also have no sense of personal space so collisions often happened and sometimes they would cause camel jams and bite eachothers arses so some of us experienced trotting on camels. We stopped for lunch under a huge tree and the camels wandered off, hobbled so they didnt run away, the guys cooked us boiled veg and chapattis and pakora and we all lazed under the tree for a few hours. We set off again and came to a village, apparently of high caste, the ladies had camel-bone huge braceletes up their arms and the kids had thick eyeliner on, apparently so they have good eyesight when they grow up. We bought pepsis and then wandered about. We trecked for a while longer until we met the dunes, they aren't huge but very pretty, we rushed to get there for sunset. When we arrived we all ran up the dunes to watch the sunset and all chatted and met the english family who were to join us from there. We had a very welcome dinner of chapati, potato broth and rice and chatted and the guys sang songs and the irish couplke played us a great repertoire of irish whistle music all around a little camp fire. Unfortunately ians stomach couldnt take the mass of carbs so he was a bit sick and had stomach ache all night. We found alittle dip in the dune and dragged our mattresses and blankets. It was a sleepless night but a great experience, the stars were beautiful and we managed to see the moonrise and the sunrise over the dunes. Day 2 Camel safari We all went for breckie of peanut butter on toast and hard boiled eggs and chai (apart from Ian as he was feeling rotten). Us and the english family and simon all set off back, this time we had different camels, I was gutted as I had remarkably grown fond of Calu and Gaga my new one was very uncomfortable and slow. The journey back wasnt much fun to tell the truth, very hot and slow and Ian was feeling pretty rough so we were glad to see the jeep. One thing I must write, we saw some windfarms as we were trecking and remarked how good it was for the environment, we would think they had powered the cities and towns in the local area.. we were wrong, they power the electric fence on the border between india and pakistan...need I say more? Altogether the whole experience was fun, and we're glad we did it, I am no longer a camel phobe and the terrible stories from everyone elses trips didnt come true, phew! We found a fabulous room in an OK hotel the bed was the most comfortable ever in a medievel room, I had a well earned shower and collapsed like the princess without a pea, Ian wasnt far behind, but unfortunately has picked up another bad gut, I have too but with me taking my antibiotic malarials more regimentally seem to not be quite as bad, TLC on our last day here then off to the mountains for peace and tranquility.