Monni has a new boyfriend!

Haha, thought this would get your attention - yes, I have a new man in my life. He is kind of hairy, tall, in his prime, farts like a trooper (no changes there me thinks :-)) and is rather sweet and docile and his name is Raj. Admittedly he sometimes smells a bit off, he probably would be anybody's for a bit of love and attention, but that doesn't change the fact that I love the camel! He is awesome!!! Hope you're relieved, Mr Chilton, yes, I haven't really traded you in for a camel... had to unfortunately give him back after our two day stint in the desert.

Set off on the 4th on our camel safari, with 7 others (two Israeli girls I met in Agra and Jodhpur, a Japanese guy, a couple from the US/Italy, but living in Switzerland, and a couple from the US, but living in Qatar - people's life stories are never straightforward when you're travelling...). Jeep pick up was 8am, then we drove via the maharajas' monuments at Bada Bagh (more interesting because of the cool dog gang living there) to our camel rendez-vous point. Yes, it was love at first sight... beautiful Raj, my companion for the next two days. Got on the camels (it's fun when they stand up and sit down, most camels get the procedure over and done with quite quickly, Raj on the other hand takes his time with me hanging somehow in the balance hanging on to dear life for what seems like a small eternity - a camel with character... don't worry chicken curry!). Have taken a classy video which will come your way very shortly. We rode for about 1.5 hours then had first desert toilet stop, then another 1.5 hours to our lunch camp. While most people just collapsed on the floor, I helped my guide (Raj's dad) to sort out the camels, gave my new friend his well earned back massage (that's Raj, not the camel driver, by the way) then they were shackled up and left to hobble from vegetation to vegetation. The desert was very flat where we started off with the odd rocky outcrop, shepherds and shrubs...

Our guides made us excellent desert food, on a little fire they made everything from crisps-style snacks to noodles, veg and chapatis to eat with. And it was extra yummy, particularly with added chilli sauce... After a little siesta, we went to find our camels, they are soo sweet and follow like dogs really, I made Raj sit down, hooray! And then they were all saddled and packed up again. By this time there were already a few sore people (and hot people, man it was extra sunny), however, we had another 3 hrs or so of camel riding in front of us till we reached our sand dune evening camp. The scenery got sandier with smaller sand dunes and shrubs and the camels just made everything look even prettier...

Evening camp was ace, a lovely big sand dune, only for us - well, the other end had another tourist group on it, but they were way off and we only really saw them arrive and leave the next morning. Again, the camels were sorted and sent off to forage on whatever foliage they could find, then we climbed the sand dunes, chilled, watched an awesome sunset (reckon the best one I have ever seen with a red ball just disappearing over the horizon), then had chai and dinner (pakoras as starters, then rice and more veg and chilli sauce) around a camp fire, the odd beer (turns out Raj wasn't only the breakfast egg camel, but also the beer camel), lots of singing by our guides, particularly made up camel safari songs listing pretty much every food item we were going to have in the two days out and about. The stars were extra beautiful, it's been a long time since I have seen the milky way so clearly (or in fact since I have seen the milky way!). Eventually we set up our beds (matresses and then we were covered in about three blankets each - quite heavy if you wanted to shift position in the middle of the night, but decidedly toasty). Whenever I couldn't sleep I would watch the stars, and when I finally get a bit chilly it turned out to be just before sunset, so the cold really wasn't much of a problem (some of our group had even ordered tents - what is that all about? You can't see the stars from within your tent!). Sunrise was about as beautiful as sunset was the night before, then it turned a bit cloudy which actually made the riding more comfortable. Brekkie was again awesome with hard boiled eggs, toast and jam, biscuits and oranges. What more do you want? Yes, I was eating an orange too, then had to give Raj extra cuddles so I would get rid of the horrible orangey smell on my hands...

Five of our group set off back for a jeep pickup, and Inbar, Dolev and I continued for another full day's riding. We repacked Dolev's camel (Johnny Walker) at some point, so we could take turns at sitting behind the camel driver to taste a bit of camel running. Was actually much more comfortable that when they were just walking. Another lunchstop, another fantastic lunch, a visit to the local village and then it was eventually time to say goodbye to the camels and our guides... aaaaarrrrgggghhhh, I am missing Raj, although my bum feels a little bit raw today. We decided apart from his oddly slow way of standing up and sitting down, he also had the most uncomfy saddle in the world. Never mind, you should judge a camel by its saddle as they say...

Anyway, before the computer decides to crash again, I best send this epic story off. Hope you're all well, will send a German update when the computers don't crash quite as frequently...

Greetings from Desert Mon