Open Up and Say India

We just finished our two-night three-day camel safari in the desert of Rajasthan India. It was awesome. We each took turns riding a camel and being pulled on the back of a cart pulled by a camel. We had a cook, a young man (18 yrs) spoke a tiny bit of English and a desert camel man (about 60 yrs old) who old who spoke no English. We slept under the stars and moon on the sand with dogs and dung beetles. We ate traditional Indian cuisine cooked over a small fire, mostly veggies and chapatti. We drank Indian tea-black tea, fresh cow milk and lots of sugar.
On our travels we were invited into a few village homes. One house (hut) was made from cow dung and sand, very solid structure with thatch rooftops. The women made us a drink called Lassi- partially churned cow milk, sort of like a yogurt, very fresh and tart a little scary, but I’m still feeling great.

The desert safari was a nice change of pace from the busy cities. Even the smaller towns are busy with motorcycles, auto rickshaws, camels, cows, dogs and tons of people.

We are now in Pushkar at the camel festival. Another busy busy place. We are staying at the most wonderful hotel called 7th Heaven (not cheesy like the t.v. show). Very nice and peaceful, with wonderful views. We saw monkeys this morning.

India is big and there is so much to explore. The computers are slow, I’ll try to get more on later.
India Rules!

look at Kyle's blog for more travel photos