If vs. when

The Maharaja, Peter, blowing his candles out

I’m as cautious of our dinner in the desert as I was earlier of mounting a camel – it’s the first Indian curry I’ve braved since the E.coli episode. I try to block out the visions of burying my face a toilet bowl, and try even harder to enjoy the spicy dishes. The plain rice and chapatti bread are a blessing. After dinner, Lalu sneaks off and brings out Barn’s birthday cake, candles lit. We sing “Happy Birthday” enthusiastically, and present the haul of gifts – including a booby prize of a filthy, rancid-smelling, and torn 5-rupee note that has been circulating the group for several weeks. It’s so bad that even a chai-wallah on our train to Varanasi laughed and rejected it. Since then, we’ve insisted it stay between us; woe betide anyone owed a cheeky fiver. “No, please! Let me shout you this chai - no need to pay me back! Honestly!”

Waking up in the desert - things could be worse

After a hugely successful surprise birthday party for Pete in the desert, we happily lie under the stars in the most comfortable, thick swags made of woollen blankets. These could, in fact, be the most comfortable beds we’ve slept in over the past six weeks. This is the life. We try not to fall asleep too quickly, but before we know it, we’re being woken by Lalu with cups of hot chai to watch the sun rise. I’m finally feeling much better this morning, and join the others for a breakfast of boiled eggs, toast and desert porridge before we trot off on our camels back to the camel drivers’ base, where a jeep picks us up. Vishnu was supposed to be meeting us out here, as it’s on the road out of town where we're heading, but we get a call from Adventure Travels to say that even after agreeing to the previous day, Vishnu is now refusing to drive out here, as it’s “not on his itinerary”. We roll our eyes, and blame miscommunication, yet again. He obviously doesn’t realise this would have shaved two hours off our travel time today, and would have meant he could knock off early. It doesn’t take the shine off the camel safari though, and we all agree it is the number one highlight of our Indian adventures.

En route back to Delhi, we stop for the night in Pushkar; it's late in the day when we get there, and we see a number of Indian weddings taking place down the streets we pass. Grooms arrive on white horses to colourful and brightly lit venues, some resembling Las Vegas wedding joints. Pushkar is one of the five sacred dahms (pilgrimage sites) for devout Hindus, but it’s also famed by hippie travellers (the dreadlocked and blatantly European ones who bow and say “Namaste” to passersby) for its availability of marijuana. We stay at Third Eye, a hotel with a 5/5 rating on Trip Advisor. The rating is deserved, as the rooms are clean and comfortable, the showers hot, and the food absolutely delicious. The owner’s wife, who's also the cook, is from the Middle East, and makes the most incredible-tasting falafel pita pockets, so good that we all order one for a takeaway lunch for the next day’s car ride. Not exactly Indian, but it's not McDonald's either.

Harriet being conned out of rupees at the ghats in Pushkar

In the morning, the early birds (Clare, Pete and Erin) opt for a sunrise walk, while Harriet and I take a more casual approach to the day, wandering the streets and visiting the sacred Pushkar Sarovar (lake) and its 52 ghats (a series of steps leading to the lake, where pilgrims can take sacred baths). Touts drag us to the ghats and perform rituals with flowers and other offerings to the lake, and demand we pay huge amounts of rupees in return for prayers for our family members. They try to guilt us into paying at least 100 rupees per family member, or US dollars if we have them. When Harriet is told by her man that I have generously paid 700 rupees, she laughs, knowing that I don’t have a single rupee on me; we were on the way to an ATM when we were mobbed by the pedlars. 

We have another long day of driving ahead of us, so we press on to Delhi later in the morning, dropping Harriet and Erin back in Jaipur in the early afternoon to catch a plane to Mumbai the following day. We say our goodbyes, promising to have an Indian-themed get-together when we’re reunited in Auckland. Vishnu requests a photo with all of us in front of the Tourist-mobile, and then we’re on our way again. We pass through the newer part of Delhi on the way in, and it’s almost a shock to see high-rise buildings with fluorescent lights advertising Nokia, Digicom, Alcatel-Lucent, Sony, Philips and countless other international companies. For the past six weeks, we’ve really only seen broken down shacks in dusty and filthy streets awash with beggars and sewerage. We stay the night at the Smyle Inn, the hotel from where we set off for Rajasthan, dining at Everest Café in preparation for our next leg of the journey.

Where's the tie, Wild?

Vishnu picks us up the following day and drops us at the airport to catch our flight to Kathmandu. As we enter the airport, I breathe a sigh of relief upon sighting a café with an espresso machine. Halleluiah! It's been a very long time between real coffees. I spend an hour battling in Hinglish with a post office clerk trying to send a parcel of presents home, and make it through customs just in time to hear our flight being called. As I approach the gangway, I see a man looking stranger than me in my bright blue camel-print pants, orange cardigan and pink sneakers. It’s Tim Wild in a new suit paired with Asics Tiger sneakers. “Hoping to get upgraded?” Barn jokes.

It’s fantastic to see Tim again and hear about his time in Sri Lanka and about our friend Ash’s wedding that he’s just come from in Chennai (hence the suit). I depart India on a high, but after a month amid chaos, I can’t wait to get to the hopefully tranquil Himalayas. For a brief moment, I wonder if India was everything I hoped it would be, or much more I really hoped it wouldn’t. But the jury’s not out for long.

"That one is definitely Everest, Tim. I swear!"

As we fly over the vast Himalayas below, attempting the impossible task of picking out Everest (Tim rolling his eyes every time I claim to see it), I remember the people of India, their faces, and their fascinating lives. I think about their many faiths, their collective passion, and their obvious love for their country and each other.

I recall the contradiction of filthy streets – despite the women’s incessant sweeping of dust from one spot to another – and the remarkably clean clothes of the children who sleep on the floor of the home in Nilakottai. I think about how hard some of the people work, while others laze about, watching life just happen. The vibrant colour of saris and of fresh produce being sold on the streets of Kodaikanal stand out above the endless the brown-on-brown buildings, shacks and slums; I think of the warm smiles of bright white teeth against dark skin. We were selflessly welcomed into people’s homes, and I remember being cooked for, cared for, and served bottomless pots of sweet tea. I think about being nursed back to health by Dr Jaggi and his medical staff in Agra. The smells of delicious new foods remain in my memory above the stench of the streets, and for all the touts, hawkers and rickshaw drivers who ripped us off, there were dozens more who couldn’t do enough to help us.

India receives the big tick, and I resolve to come back one day – and not just in transit on my way home from Nepal in three weeks’ time. With so much of the world still to see, and so little annual leave, it’s not a question of if, but simply of when.

A careless whisper

Naughty Leos defying Odi by taking a lion-esque photo

A driver picks Erin and me up at the Amit Jaggi Memorial Hospital in Agra late in the afternoon, and we sail past the Taj Mahal in the distance as we leave the city – me, having never made it there in person. “Aggra-vating,” I mumble – totally intending the pun – but the joke falls flat, even on myself.

Erin tries to comfort me: “Lucky we could see it from the window of our hotel that first night!”
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“And awesome that we had a poster of it at the foot of our hospital beds!” she jokes.
“Yeah, awesome,” I try, not finding it funny just yet. It will come, I think, remembering a Brotip about bad experiences slowly turning into funny stories and then happy memories. All in good time.

We knock on the door of the Pearl Palace Hotel room of the others when we arrive in the "Pink City" of Jaipur, and get a great reception from Harriet, Clare and Pete, hugging like long, lost friends – having been parted for just over 24 hours. We head to the rooftop restaurant for some dry toast and antibiotics for dinner, and check out the lights of the city, planning the next day’s outing.

In the morning, we meet India’s most annoying tour guide, Odi, who insists we stick to his regimented plan and will not answer any questions outside of his script, which he delivers in a particularly grating sing-song manner. We visit City Palace and the neighbouring Jantar Mantar, a collection of architectural, astronomical and “jod-ee-ark” (zodiac) instruments and sundials built by the Maharaja (king) in the 1700s. Odi then proceeds to tell us exactly what we must take photos of. “You take photo NOW,” he instructs authoritatively. The antibiotics I’m on are as nauseating as Odi, so the whole sightseeing fiasco doesn’t go down too well. Mercifully, we release Odi from his services in the afternoon and I sleep the rest of the day away at the hotel while the others walk around the Pink City taking photos of whatever they would like to, and not what Odi says they must.

The Blue City and its fort

We leave Jaipur at 6am the following day, and travel the long, straight road filled with more cows and now horses, to Jodhpur, the "Blue City". We arrive at lunchtime to a similar-looking city to Jaipur (only with everything painted blue, not pink), with wonderful views of the city’s fort from the rooftop of our hotel. There’s definitely a set formula for these cities in Rajasthan – paint the buildings all one colour, tick, build a fort, tick.

We head out for a walk up a steep road to the fort, but I don’t quite make it to the top, nearly fainting on the way – this does not bode well for our Everest Base Camp trek in just 10 days’ time. Instead of jostling with the crowds at the fort, Clare and I find a quiet spot on the adjacent hill with monuments resembling Stonehenge, perched above the Middle Eastern-looking city. We fall asleep on some rocks in the sun, listening to a brass band rehearsing for the following day’s celebrations for India Republic Day, the same day as Australia Day. It’s not quite Advance Australia Fair or Walzing Matilda I’ve heard on the 26th of January for the past few years at the Australian Open in Melbourne, but the traditional Indian folk music is played just as passionately and patriotically.

We have another 6am departure from Jodhpur, and after a quick phonecall to Dr Jaggi back in Agra, I stock up on anti-nausea meds he recommends, still trying to shake off the side-effects of the E.coli-fighting drugs, days after leaving hospital. On our journey to Jaisalmer, Vishnu swerves at random to avoid donkeys and camels, and of course the customary cows that roam the highways. As we pull into the “Golden City” of Rajasthan (again – choose a colour, build a fort), people are dressed in their Sunday best outfits and school uniforms for Republic Day, and a shambolic parade is taking place. We drive through the town in the Tourist-mobile, as we’ve dubbed our ever-so-obvious mode of transport, and almost become part of the parade. We certainly are a star attraction; strapping King Peter (with his four princesses in tow) receives a lot of stares.

Contrary to popular belief, Erin and Barn are not conjoined

The manager of our hotel is extremely excitable and, most unfortunately, has a lisp. He tells us about the “Jaithalmer dethert fethtival” that we won’t be around for in February, and he says one of the highlights is a “tharee” (sari) tying” and turban-wrapping competition between the locals “to thee how fatht they can tie them!” he enthuses. We tell him we’re keen to do an overnight camel safari, and he happily points us in the direction of Adventure Travel, recommended by our friend Cassie. There, we meet the German office manager, Martina, possibly the most helpful person we’ve come across on our travels. Being a rare European citizen of Jaisalmer, we ask how she came to live here, and she smiles and says, “My heart.” We’re not sure if she means she loves the place, or someone in particular here, but she tells us she lives six months of the year in Jaisalmer, and the other six months in Britain, and she seems to make it work. Martina gives us the ins and outs of overnight trips into the desert and shows us the thick swags we’ll sleep in on the desert sand. We head off in very high spirits, eager for our safari the next day.

We walk up to the fort and buy birthday presents for Barn, whose birthday was almost forgotten last week in the blur of the Agra hospital visit. Us girls have decided to surprise him with a camel safari birthday party in the desert, and we go all out – Clare and I buy him a bronze camel statue, while Erin and Harriet purchase a fancy Maharaja (king) shirt, a wooden recorder and plastic party whistles. We also pitch in for a cake from the German Bakery, and ask them to write “Happy Birthday Peter” on it, before changing our minds and asking that they make that “Happy Birthday King Peter” – as much to the owner’s amusement as our own.

Jeep ride into the desert

The following day Harriet’s not feeling well at all, and waits until the last minute to decide that she will still come on the camel safari – not letting King Peter’s birthday celebrations be postponed again by illness. We board a jeep for a 50-minute ride into the desert, and meet our camels and their ‘drivers’ (trainers). I’m a little nervous of the large animals, having not “got back on the horse” after being bucked off one at El Rancho camp in Waikanae as a 10-year-old. Noting my apprehension, Lalu the camel driver appoints me “Babbu Bhai”, the smallest and best-behaved of all the camels, he promises. The camel drivers wrap our turbans on our heads, and after the initial terror of climbing on the camel and lurching forwards then backwards as it stands up, we trot off in a row, and it is actually quite fun. In our colourful camel-print pants and rainbow of turbans, we feel very Sex and the City 2 – well, the girls do anyway. Barn doesn’t have a bar of it.

Sweet ride

We ride the camels for just over an hour into the desert, stopping along the way at a local village in the middle of nowhere, with huts made of dried camel dung, mud and water. Children mob us when we climb off the camels to have a look around, and Lalu tells me all about the people of the village. He was brought up in a desert village like this, and he’s never been to school; “I learn my English only from the tourist,” he admits. I tell him his English is very good, and he blushes, shrugging it off. “The children here now are verrrrrry luckeeeee,” he reckons, as they get picked up by buses each day to go to a desert school.

Home for the night

We continue on our camel safari, and after another short ride we arrive at our spot for the night – untouched dunes with sand swept across them in neat waves, like freshly groomed powder of ski-fields. We arrive just in time for photos in front of the sunset, and Clare helps Lalu and his cooks make a large pot of deliciously sweet Indian cardamom tea. As the cooks make dinner by the impossibly dim light of their mobile phones and the flames below the pot, we chat and aimlessly dig our feet into the still-warm and silky sand. A young Indian guy from Delhi, Sagar, is also on our safari trip – the only one not from our travelling group – and he’s much more in the know with the Indian desert, managing to get the camel drivers to source some suspect-looking desert alcohol made from the cactus plant. He becomes chattier after a few swigs of the stuff, and asks us what kind of music we listen to, before pulling out his BlackBerry and generously playing a few tunes aloud for the group.

Clare's culinary skills put to the test in the desert

We stifle grins when he blasts WHAM!’s “Careless Whisper” – somehow I don’t think it’s on the Top 25 Most Played lists on any of our iPods. It couldn’t be a more inappropriate tune for the occasion, but it’s a nice gesture, nonetheless. Barn is the only one of us game enough to try the vodka-like desert drink, but he’s quick to give me a slightly more careful whisper to let me know it tastes like paint-stripper. Under the moonless sky, he’s able to rid his makeshift cup (a Fanta bottle with the top sliced off, care of Sagar) of the drink on the sly. As if on cue, George Michael belts out, “Now that you’re gone, now that you’re gone,” from the BlackBerry, signalling not only the end of the song, but mercifully for Barn, the end of his foray into dodgy desert alcohol.