Home » India » 3 Cities, A Close Shave and Bob the Camel

"Err, I'd like a shave please."
"Certainly sir."
It's one of those things I felt I had to risk trying while in India, and for any man tempted, some, few or all of the following steps may occur:

3 Cities, A Close Shave and Bob the Camel

Simon Wadsworth
2006-09-04 13:04:44

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no use as...and so on. It's easier just to give up and wait for that tempting shower.

You would've thought the desert is a dead, desolate place, but I realise it's actually teeming with life. Besides cattle, 100s of deer are scattered across the plains, lizards with green tails drop into holes, and I was even lucky enough to see a desert fox. Birds are numerous, including what I think was a kingfisher (well, it has shiny green plummage at the very least), and waking up
the following morning, the entire dune was a sea of blackness; 1000s of thumb-sized dung beetles scurrying everywhere. I was fascinated and watched them go about their lives for what must have been over an hour - moving their little balls of dung, fiercely fighting off their rivals, the survival of the fittest, and making little holey homes. Maybe the heat was getting to me, but I was mesmerised.

After an enchanting sunrise, it didn't take long for the day to heat up, and with breakfast of sweet chapatis, and a short stop at the village for yet more chai, we set off once more across the Thar, back to Khuri, my skin now nearly as dark as the locals, and bottled water as hot as can be. We stopped for lunch at a desert mud shack, but lingered only a few hours, eager to get back to fans and cold water. Even the horny donkeys were trying to squeeze into small circles of shade under wilting trees.

Our arrival back in the village and civilisation was made all the more apparant by the booming sound of a man shouting through a megaphone in his van, driving along
the road. Sounding like the harsh rhetoric of some government party, but was in fact, I was told, a man selling pickle from Jaisalmer. After catching a delayed local bus, I was back in Jaisalmer by nightfall, suitably refreshed from thali, lassi and a swim, and tempted by another wet shave...

Enjoy the photos - I've sort of over-done it as usual. Best wishes.
Take care of yourself aaaaaaand each other. -x-