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1 Jul 2008
JAISALAMER, India — The best part of riding a camel is that calamitous instant when the camel heaves itself from the ground. For a moment you’re hanging parallel to the sand, certain that you’re going to fall out of the saddle and suddenly aware that even a halfway-standing-up camel is very, very tall. Then the knobby knees straighten. You take a breath. You look down at the distant sand and feel an unfurling majesty. Let the world take note: you are on top of a camel. Your placid steed  turns to look at you and blinks its long, flirtatious eyelashes. You unclench your fingers from the pommel and untangle the reins. You do this with an exquisite boredom. Lawrence of Arabia’s got nothing on you. Reigns in hand, you try to imitate the clicking noise the camel drivers use to get the animals started. You clack. You tsk. You make kissy sounds and tap your heels tentatively against the camel’s sides. It’s probably not a good idea to make it angry. Then one of the camel drivers, a local guy in flip-flops who would rather work in a hotel, comes up. He takes the reins back from you and starts walking. The camel follows him. You’re off! The worst part of riding a camel? Unbruised reader, let me count the ways. Everyone I knew who had been to India had ridden on a camel. So when I got to Jaisalamer, a desert town in the far reaches of Rajasthan, I signed up immediately. And, I’ll admit, the first ten minutes were great. Think of the photos! My Facebook friends were going to be so jealous. Then I realized that the ride was not ending. This was not a theme park. My next 36 hours would be spent here, somewhere in the desert between India and Pakistan, doing exactly what I was doing now: lurching left, then right, each time with a little jounce that made me intimately aware of each step the camel took. Marco Polo, I realized, was a masochist. Fuck the Silk Road. Who would do this to themselves? Xanadu—whatever. With camels as the only means of transport, I would never have left my village. (TO BE CONTINUED…) —Lois E. Beckett

JAISALAMER, India — The best part of riding a camel is that calamitous instant when the camel heaves itself from the ground. For a moment you’re hanging parallel to the sand, certain that you’re going to fall out of the saddle and suddenly aware that even a halfway-standing-up camel is very, very tall.

Then the knobby knees straighten. You take a breath. You look down at the distant sand and feel an unfurling majesty. Let the world take note: you are on top of a camel. Your placid steed  turns to look at you and blinks its long, flirtatious eyelashes. You unclench your fingers from the pommel and untangle the reins. You do this with an exquisite boredom. Lawrence of Arabia’s got nothing on you. Reigns in hand, you try to imitate the clicking noise the camel drivers use to get the animals started. You clack. You tsk. You make kissy sounds and tap your heels tentatively against the camel’s sides. It’s probably not a good idea to make it angry. Then one of the camel drivers, a local guy in flip-flops who would rather work in a hotel, comes up. He takes the reins back from you and starts walking. The camel follows him. You’re off!

The worst part of riding a camel? Unbruised reader, let me count the ways.

Everyone I knew who had been to India had ridden on a camel. So when I got to Jaisalamer, a desert town in the far reaches of Rajasthan, I signed up immediately. And, I’ll admit, the first ten minutes were great. Think of the photos! My Facebook friends were going to be so jealous. Then I realized that the ride was not ending. This was not a theme park. My next 36 hours would be spent here, somewhere in the desert between India and Pakistan, doing exactly what I was doing now: lurching left, then right, each time with a little jounce that made me intimately aware of each step the camel took.

Marco Polo, I realized, was a masochist. Fuck the Silk Road. Who would do this to themselves? Xanadu—whatever. With camels as the only means of transport, I would never have left my village. (TO BE CONTINUED…) —Lois E. Beckett

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