The next morning we headed to the hospital for Chris' final rabies shot. It has been a lot of effort and risk for a mouse nibble but I'm glad we've done it. A PEP or Post Exposure prophylaxis is a serious of 5 shots that you have to have if you have not had Rabies shots before. If we would have had Rabies shots before leaving the UK, Chris would have only needed 2.
Next we headed for the desert. Ali's brother Obaya drove us and another family to the desert via a Jain temple and an old set of town ruins said to now be haunted. I didn't see ghosts but I did smell (they stink) and saw more bats! Then onto the camels.
When we arrived Chris and I left the other family and had our own ride to the dunes. The guy in charge of the camels told us we were late and if we didn't rush we might miss sunset...
My camel didn't seem to want to go, though amid the spitting and poo-ing it got to its feet. However Chris' camel seemed much happier and the camel safari-man joined him on the back of 'Camel No 1'.
I had hoped that 'Camel No 1' might have got its name because it walked in front but it soon turned out Camel No 1 was the favoured camel and mine, Robert, was the naughty camel. We were told that Camel No 1 used to be a racing camel but Robert had no such talent. As we were late our camel safari man set out to make up time and with a cry of...'No Run, No fun' Camel No 1 set of. Robert struggled a little to keep up which resulted in constant trotting for almost an hour.
Above is Camel No 1. And below is Robert.
Turns out we probably didn't need to rush quite so much as we arrived in plenty of time for sunset...
So we played in the dunes. Obaya joined us.
Chris and I raced to the top of the dunes.
Chris beat me to the top, but I had planned ahead & rolled sideways all the way down. Painful but rapid...if there was any hope of winning Chris had to follow...
Sunset was spectacular...
And then we ate, set up our isolated beds in the middle of the desert and tried to use 'Star App' to find constellations. Chris has more of a talent for finding constellations and I was pretty happy with shooting stars.
AND then to my absolute shock, Chris proposed! I said yes.
And we sat under the stars, engaged....for about 20 minutes. The plan the next morning was to have breakfast and then go in another camel ride (trot) back to our pickup point. In fact after 20 minutes Chris started feeling sick and before we knew it was sick for the rest of the night, in the middle of the desert. Pretty tough.
We also acquired three howling desert strays (dogs) for company who barked and howled for most of the night protecting their territory. These dogs obviously have a love for humans however as I was licked on the face and Chris nuzzled on the shoulder throughout the night. This prompted another Rabies scare.
Finally morning came around and I headed down to ask if we could skip the camel ride and get a car back to our hotel. The camel safari man seemed surprised that someone had been ill. I wonder who he thought had been projectile vomiting all night in the desert? He was sleeping pretty close.
Anyway jeep on its way...Chris just had enough energy for a Breaking Bad shot.
Two days of Chris-in-bed-trying-to-sip-water later, we boarded a 20hr train to Delhi, for a flight to Nepal!
Side note: a tuktuk driver back in Delhi tried to charge us £3 at the end of a trip to our airport hotel, when we had agreed £2 at the start. He said that it took him longer than he thought, and that we had to pay more. Chris and he got into a 'discussion' on the nature of contracts and agreements and then Chris used a Hindi phrase that Ali had taught him. We had to quickly escape into the hotel,.... and prepare for our flight to Kathmandu.
Bye India!
Jane (and Chris towards the end)
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