24 hours in the Rajasthani desert (by Joe)

We took a fantastic overnight trip recently from Jodhpur (north west India). The trip was camel trekking and staying in a small guesthouse in the Rajasthani desert.

We arrived in time for a dune walk at sunset (see above) and after a simple dinner we were given the choice of a room or sleeping on the roof of one of the guesthouse's outbuildings .. and chose the latter.

There are no mozzies in the desert (they like damp conditions and breed in standing water) but we were still concerned about other crawlies.

Fortunately there were no such problems - and the view from bed at night was just outstanding - as was it when dawn broke to wake us up (see left - the outdoor bedroom).

In the morning we went camel trekking. Riding a camel is hard work, extremely uncomfortable and very smelly (see Laura left).

However the trek was notable for the Rajasthani family we met (meet Shavti Singh - bottom).

They showed us truly excellent hospitality - too excellent we thought - as they shoved into our hands two enormous glasses of unpasturised curd freshly milked from the rather scrawny looking goat in the yard.

Despite obvious fears about what it might do to our soft european digestive systems, we were perfect guests, and finished it off thanking them profusely.

We decided we'd better turn down the offer of sharing in the contents of bag of (what we strongly suspected was) opium which was being passed around, though.

Joe