There's one main road where the Camel Walas compete for the hearts and wallets of would-be camel riders. A couple bold entrepreneurs stand at the entrance and offer the highest rates. But, about half a mile later stand the throngs of them waiting to pounce at the very sight of headlights. As we were approaching, about ten of them began running alongside our car, some holding onto it, others tapping on the window. When we pulled to a stop, we had at least thirty men clamoring for our attention. There were people pointing, yelling, smiling, poking, and prodding. Most of the negotiations took place in Hindi between our guide, Hari, and the men. At one point, he lit up a cigarette, turned up the music, and sat back and relaxed as they continued to scream, gesticulate, and deal. Finally, after a few minutes of this song and dance, we yelled from the back "3 camels! 50 (rupees) each!" and a deal was made. Sitting in the back, one guy pointed at me, and yelled "YOU! You are with me!" I had no choice, really, as I stepped out of the car, he grabbed my wrist, and before I knew it I was sitting on a camel, perched high above the ground.
I had ridden camels before in Israel, but this was way more fun, as instead of being a caravan, we were each riding our own camel individually. The ride was peaceful for about 5 minutes until we reached the sand dunes. At that point, the camel wala hopped on the back of the camel, and shouted guttural commands until the camel began navigating the undulations of the dunes. As we were going down them, the camels picked up a lot of speed, thrusting all of us at least a foot into the air. By the time we were done, we definitely had "camel-induced-butt-soreness," from the constant rising and falling.
Eventually we reached the midway point of our trek, at which point both the humans and camels got a brief respite. We stopped at a point nestled beneath a couple of sand dunes, with an incredible view of the desert stretching out towards the horizon. We took turns running up the sand dunes for pictures, as well as posing with our new camel friends (mine, by the way, was named Lalu).
As we re-cameled ourselves, we began galloping off, quite literally, into the sunset, which made for a gorgeous backdrop as we returned to the spot where the camel walas, once again, were fighting for new riders.
A video compilation of the camel riding I put together:
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