Hi all, I'm whole and healthy - mostly so - after a week of madness in the deserts of Rajasthan.
I've been thinking like mad, how to really show you how absolutely amazing my week has been. It's truly been some of the best traveling I've ever done, no doubt about it. But how to get that through in this bloody blog?!
Well, my solution has been to copy my diary in here - hopefully, you'll feel a bit the happiness, exhilaration, and overall thrill I was experiencing while doing things that dreams (mine anyway) are made of...

DAY 1 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 14.11.2008

Yesterday was the last day of the Pushkar Camel Fair. IT was crazy - I bought so many nice things for myself, plus I went down to the Mela Grounds (main fair grounds) and watched a crazy motorbike show and a terribly boring circus show. Right now, I'm lying 25 kms from Pushkar, writing with a small candle and a minute camp fire as my only source of light. It took us about 4 hours to do the 25 kms today, so I expect us to do about 45-50 tomorrow. It's fantastic. Ive been riding Krishna aka. Ganesh today. He's an extremely intelligent 7-year-old camel; it's so bloody cool! The two camel drivers have taken it in turns to 'drive' the camel cart. Two camels, one wagon, and three gentlemen (read: Lonesome Desert Cowboys) - that's what my travel party consists of.

Facts about camels:
- They can start pissing and go on for about 50-75 meters!
- They learn quickly; Krishna started out not wanting to ride very fast with me. Then I learnt to whip him hard enough! In the end, I only had to raise my hand and he would accelerate dramatically to avoid the sting. (I should add that the Indians whipped the beasts harder than I, AND that a camel is a pretty big animal - if you don't control its every move, it can bite you arm off, no kidding...)
- The sound of camel poop hitting the ground becomes as cozy as that of a flickering flame - it just fits in here in the desert!

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DAY 2 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 15.11.2008

More facts about camels:
- A camel will spend all night eating, simultanously taking a crap - AND burping and farting like a trooper all the way through.
- Camels growl! Or rather, they omit a low gutteral rumble that sonds terribly like that of a pissed of bear ready to eat you (this you find out when woken by it at 3am!).

Yesterday evening, my first night sleeping in the desert, was great. I had a long chat with Babu (my main camel driver) about women and sex.

!!!I WILL NOW WARN OFF MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS - THIS'LL MAKE YOU CRINGE!!!

Babu personally prefers Korean 'chut' (pussy); "Girls from Korea have small eyes, and they have small pussy, too!" > quote, Lonesome Cowboy Babu :)) We had a great laugh, both longing for someone (female) to cuddle up with for a few hours.
Babu complained about the Indian women. They won't even kiss with the tongue or anything, let alone have dirty, all-night sex. Apparently, the beautiful gypsy-like Rajasthani women I have mentioned ARE actually gypsies - a  socalled gypsy-caste! They sometimes prostitute themselves to Westerners for "big" money. - probably a few thousands rupees. (I later found out that big money was about 300-500Rs. Shit. :-/ ) 
And dear God! Babu is an intelligent guy, but he and many other desert people apparently believe that camel milk kan cure HIV/Aids! He offered to find me an Indian woman, but I declined because of the risk of HIV. (;o)) He could only agree, but then told me of this ridiculous remedy... so it is; simple folk, simple methods (not to say minds...).
It's nearly 9am. and we're soon off. Think I'll ride for 3-4 hours, then lie in the cart and read for a couple of hours. (my pen is running low... must remember to buy new one...)
(I soon found out that writing'n'reading was completely impossible in the cart, it having no suspension whatsoever and therefore bumping more than the camel pulling it!)
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We've been riding non-stop since 9o'clock - four hours. My arse is feeling sore and I'm properly suntanned (read, burnt and red as a lobster) eventhough I've been wearing sunscreen 50 and have been riding in the cart for one and a half hours.
We're preparing lunch now - don't know what's on the menu, but I think maube some dish with alu (potato).
'Gora Log' is me = white man. Everytime we ride through a village this is what all the children scream. That and 'RamRam'=g'day and Da'Da= bye-bye.
I've seeen green parrots, kingfishers + 2 wild antelopes! Oh, and wild peacocks, too!
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Still day 2 and I've got more to tell. 'Only in India' is one of my all-time hate-expressions. People says it in such a bloody superior Western way - as if it is a bad thing, actually such a bad thing that it can only happen here! BUT! And there's always a but, only in India could this happen:
We rode from 9am to 2pm - had lunch for about an hour. from 3-6pm we were at it again, but tonight we're not sleeping in the desert. A family has taken us in for the night and showed us all the kindness of the World! They are of the Rajput-caste, meaning that they are pretty much as high up in Rajasthan as you can get. This does not mean they are rich though. They are well educated but farmers nontheless - well-off farmers, but not rich by anyones standards. But eventhough the patriarc of the family, an 80-odd-year-old man, is wearing dirty, half-ragged old clothes, they still invite us in, serve us rum & whisky by the barrels plus very good food and lodging - all free of cost.
What is terrible, and what I feel is typically Indian, is how they treat me. I'm treated like a bloody king in a house of... KINGS! It just isn't right that they wakj backwardsa out of doors, nearly kissing my hand, when they're the Rajputs!
I've got loads to tell other than this, but... tomorrow!
NOTE TO SELF:
- Men felling trees while sat in them.
- Sore thighs
- Etc...

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DAY 3 of Camel Safari Pushkar-Jodhpur, 16.11.2008

Awake and fresh out of an Indian shower. A duck is waddling about outside my window and I can hear the tock-tock-tock of the farms small generator.
Life is good. Yesterday, I had a full-out laughing session with Babu. A very sweet farmer woman stopped to talk to us (read, look at me) for lunch. All of a sudden she was gone - but then came back with a skirtful of a kind of gurkin/pumpkin/melon. I was of course basically forced to eat one (they were quite dirty, having just been picked) and she then began babbling on about vegetables and how big they could get in the monsoon time. Babu got bored of his interpretation job and finally made an extremely crude joke - I buckled over laughing and the poor woman fled! Jitu (my other camel driver and the 3rd Lonesome Desert Cowboy) tried explaining (telling her some lame cover story) while Babu and I were pissing ourselves! Oh, it was so good. Jitu was very embarrassed which of course just made it all ten times more funny.
Men felling trees... well, I told myself I had to write about this. At the camel fair axeheads were sold in vast numbers. I even considered buying one - they lookey very cool! :) Yesterday, I saw some in use: several men were climbing around the top of big trees, all the while chopping away at branches. It seemed as such a hazardous thing to do, swinging an axe around while balancing on a branch. Other men were scampering around underneath the trees, narrowly avoiding getting the bigger branches in the head. All the branches were then put on huge carts and I guess, lugged home either for burning, building houses, or fortifying fences.
Sore thighs! Oh, mmy poor sore thighs. A camel is surprisingly nice to ride. It's the saddle that kills you. It's made of wood, no leather attached, and Babu just drapes a feeble mini-mattress over it a few times. This of course saves me from direct anal destruction (your anus is basically sat directly on the pointy spine of the camel), but only just. My thighs are half raw from yesterday - I've got bald patches and bloody marks random places on my legs (and arse I guess). Tisn't too bad though, and I'm back on Krishna today, of course.
I've written etc. on the last page, but all I can think of right now is how lovely life is out here. I've seen so many mice running around the hourse - one is in here with me in my sleeping quarters; I think it's sure I've got something of interest in my bag! ;o) It keeps running over and trying to get in. - I'd better check the bag before we leave. Wouldn't want to kidnap the poor bugger! ;-)
Oh, something else absolutely fantastic. The folks out here of course don't buy processed milk. They've got two water buffaloes and one cow. Yesterday morning we had a mix-milk of cow and goat. It's fantastic - the chai is rich and creamy, full in a way that doesn't seem only to be fat but also... flavour. (found out later that it probably was fat, since buffaloes milk is 2-3 times more fattening than that of a cow. A water buffaloe costs more than a camel for the same reason, starting at about 25-50.000Rs.!)