Walking with Bulldozers

The warm silence stroked my skin like the softest feather, healing my aching mind. The noise of the cities had scratched away at my nerves long enough, so a camel safari in the silent Great Thar Desert in Western Rajasthan was like a soothing balm.

We set out from just outside Jaisalmeer. A Jeep drove us out half-an-hour's ride into the desert to meet to our camels and guide. My camel was called Kaloo and although he seemed good-natured enough, he did protest slightly in a loud gurgling moan as I mounted him in ungainly fashion. He lurched to his feet as I clung on for dear life and, from the high vantage point of his back, I had uninterrupted views of the desert.

Some would not call it beautiful but to me it was. Not the waves of rippled sand dunes of storyboks, it was an arid land, it's crumbling, dusty yellow earth, quilted with low scrubby trees and desert plants. Spiky fine cacti, slender as green twigs, scratched at the sky and the broad flat leaves, curved stems and tiny purple flowers of the Acha plants made little puffballs of grey-green life across the scene. Low rolling hills gave way occasionally to rocky outcrops, while dirt tracks, fences and even power cables trailed across the landscape running off into apparent infinity.

As we rode west towards the golden light of the late afternoon sun, the warm breeze drew little curls of dust from the ground.We passed lone houses or small groups of huts, barely even villages, and every so often on the horizon, an old man swathed in dusty truban and long robes appeared, herding skinny goats, sheep or cows, their bells chiming gently as they moved.

I felt dwarfed by the space and the silence. As far as the eye could see, the desert unfolded its ragged beauty and the pure solid sky above was endless. In the empty quiet, gone was the crowing, shouting, clanging of rickshaw horns and the clamour of life. The clogging, choking fumes and dust of the cities was replaced by the scent of fresh air and nothingness.

I have a strange attraction to desolate, open, unattractive landscapes. Deserts, Salt flats, marshes, even The Fens, all have an indefinable quality to them that I love. While they make me feel tiny and insignificant, a pinprick of existence in their vastness, it is also their open expanses that excite me and make me feel alive. They provoke in me a delicious loneliness and melancholy that a picture postcard scene could never achieve.

My safari companions were a fascinating selection of individuals: A friendly German couple, Maria and Hubert, on a short 3-week holiday; our guide Delpat (who insisted on being called Delboy); and Rahim, Delboy's young nephew, who was leading the the camel carrying our provisions.

Delboy was a cheerful, expressively-moustachioed desert villager. In between shouts and clicks of encouragement to the camels, he kept up a chatty banter peppered with Delboy's famous phrases, 'luvvly jubbly' and 'bloody marvellous'.

The camels were characters too. Along with Kaloo they were Sonia, Rocket and Bulldozer. Bulldozer lived up to his name.Charging straight at every bush, he would brush right up against it, in a futile attempt to dislodge the flies that buzzed and settled constantly on him and us.Within seconds they were back.

This was very amusing for Hubert and me but for Maria, who was riding Bulldozer, not so much, as she would quickly yank up her legs and lean away to one side to avoid extensive laceration on the thorns and branches.

It was impossible to take photos on the lolloping camels, so for once I was forced to just relax and take in the surroundings. The low light stretched cool shadows over the dry earth and the warm soft breeze blew the silnce right into our very souls. I couldn't stop smiling!

Gradually in the distance a cluster of sand dunes rose up, signalling our stopping point for the night. The sun would set over them in a short while and I was looking forward to a magical night under the stars and to dismounting Kaloo, who was not a comfortable mount.

When delboy had found a good spot for our camp in the shadow of the dunes, we clambered off our camels - or tried to. After two-and-a-half hours in the saddle my thighs had seized up and I had to lean dramatically to one side to disengage the first leg and physically lift the other with my hands to get it over Kaloo's back. It was agony and the constant rubbing motion had chafed me in places one should never be chafed! Ladies, do NOT wear a thong on a camel safari, that's all I have to say.

Now we were stationary we scrabbled up the soft sand onto the dunes to watch the sunset and take photos of the landscape, while Delboy and Rahim started the campfire and began to prepare our evening meal. As we reached the top, we spotted a pinch of other tourists sprinkled on top of another dune, several dunes away. The solitude and 'non-touristic' sunset we'd been promised had not quite happened. It didn't matter, we could still enjoy the sight.

The cooler evening air had brought out the dung beetles from the dunes. Looking like big glossy black buttons, the size of a 10p piece, they hurried about, apparently nowhere, embroidering the sand with the delicate tracery of their feet. Crickets began to sing in the bushes and in the distance I could hear the faint clang of cowbells.

As the sound got louder, a young boy in glowing white shirt and trousers crested the dune ahead of us, but he had no cow herd with him, just a sack slung over one shoulder, from which this clanging was coming. As he approached with a grin on his face he called out,'Cold beer, cold beer!' It seemed that even in the desert we were not immune to the determined trader. We laughed as he opened his sack to reveal several bottles of cool Kingfisher beer. We bought some and watched as he left to try his luck with the other tourists.

Ahead of us the sun was putting on a spectacular show. Small puffs of cloud had sprung up and the light was staining them a delicate rose pink. The sky between was a cool indigo blue. As we looked on, sipping our beer and brushing away the persistant dung beetles, the clouds thickened to become flags of cerise, scarlet and gold, like so many stips of sari fabric stretched across the sky. It was as lovely as we could have hoped for and with a cool beer in hand, even better.

At the base of the dune, Delboy and Rahim had produced from scratch our meal of lentil dahl, chapatis and hot, sickly sweet masala chai. After our meal we relaxed by the fire and as night fell, Delboy began to sing haunting desert songs, beating out the rhythmn on the water cooler bottle we'd brought along with us. Over the horizon a brown moon rose and, silhouetted against it, the necks of the camels, so scruffy and lumpen during the day, took on the grace and elegance of swans.

Later I lay back on my bed in the flickering glow of the campfire, looking up at the immense black sky, its stars so clear you could see every one. Slightly drunk on the beer, the songs, the sunset and the empty silence I felt invincible, so tiny, yet so powerful. I felt that I was Everything and that the world would never end. I had all I ever wanted right here, right now. I smiled all over.