Jaisalmer Camel Safari

Envision yourself riding on a camel into the desert crossing the Indian villages with a huge herd of camels around you.....twilight arrives Ride a camel and sway with your camel's gait as you trek towards enthralling sand dunes steeped in honey colored mist. As you near the desert expanse, the sun begins to set behind the dunes and the molten-gold desert changes hues to glistening ochre, deep yellow-red, red, bluish to a dark black.

The camel riders cum guides who accompany you on your Jaisalmer camel safari sport colorful tunics and bright turbans enchant you with desert tales as you ride deeper into the mammoth Thar.

Discover desert traditions, folk culture and desert ways during your Jaisalmer camel safari with Rajasthan Holiday. Help your safari guides pitch in tents, relieve the camels of their heavy load and tie them to wooden posts for them to rest, collect dried twigs and light a small fire.

Enjoy the sheer pleasure of watching your caravan guides cook traditional meals over the tiny bonfire and experience the magic of relaxing on a massive sand carpet with twinkling stars overhead.

Let Rajasthan Holiday show you a captivating land that engages you with its countless colors and delightfully attractive charms.

About Jaisalmer Camel Safari

We arrived to Jaisalmer in the morning before sunrise and got a room from hotel Paradise. We had the breakfast on the rooftop of the hotel watching the sunrise. The view is amazing! The hotel is situated inside the fort rising high above the city. The 850 years old fort, which looks like a giant sand castle, is full of old temples and palaces, most of which are now serving as hotels. There are no vehicles on the narrow lanes of the fort which further increases its magical feeling. Comparing to Jodhpur and Agra, Jaisalmer is quite small and peaceful, which was welcome after all the hassle in the big cities. However, Jaisalmer is a tourist hot spot and thus the sales people are more aggressive.

On the first day we were excited about the magical golden city and walked around the streets in the fort and the old city. Soon we realized one of the down sides brought by tourism, the food was below average and most of the restaurants seemed to be relying on one time customers. This feeling increased on the following days since we were able to find only one good restaurant, or maybe it was Every day we had a lunch break about three hours. It was too hot to be riding. We ate, read and slept in the shadow of the trees. just our bad luck choosing the restaurants. After Agra and Jodhpur we were used to having excellent indian meals where ever we went, even in the most dodgiest places.

We booked a three day camel safari from the hotel and started the safari on the second morning. First we were taking a jeep drive for an hour into the desert, just like in the movies. In the desert our guides and camels were waiting for us and we loaded the camels. During the first hour we both realized the following days would be long and painful. Being first time camel riders it was quite a treat for our butts. Riding a camel into a village is impolite so we would get off the camels when approaching a village. Fortunately there were quite many villages in this desert, giving us opportunity to stretch our sore butts.

Our guide Simon turned out to be an excellent cook so we were delightful after our bad experience with the food in Jaisalmer. Each day we rode about three hours before lunch, had a lunch break for about three hours and then would ride about two hours before setting the camp. The first day took us through some bushlands and through a couple of villages onto a sand dune. When approaching the sand dune we were accompanied by two other safari groups and eventually there was a total of 5 groups camping on the same dune. The dune was merely an area of about 200 by 800 meters of sand rising in the middle of the bushlands. Apparently all the dunes around here are like this, so they can get quite busy of campers. Sleeping on the dune under the stars was an unforgettable experience what so ever, and well worth the sore butts. :) On the second day we rode through some more bushland and visited a couple of villages, had a lunch break and continued towards Jaisalmer. We ended up on a tiny sand dune, not more than a sand box, but the good thing was that there was no one else. It was a nice and quiet location and we had nice time sitting around a campfire and chatting with Simon about his life in the desert and his experiences as a camelman. On the last day we rode all the way to Jaisalmer, which was quite an feeling They are everywhere, the dung beetles are going somewhere all the time. In the morning our mattress was surrounded by these marks to ride a camel in the hot desert approaching the giant sand castle.

After the safari we spent a few more of days in Jaisalmer and then took a bus to Udaipur. We booked a deluxe bus and were told that it is "very nice bus". Once again we fell for it and were expecting to get a decent bus ride by our standards. When we got to the bus we were once again let down by our expectations; it was probably the filthies bus we've ever seen and looked as if it had been driven into a wall. Still it was not as bad as it could have been and we got over our disappointment by making jokes of the situation and listening to some System of a Down, which soon got us on better moods.

But there was more to come. We were to change bus in Jodhpur and take a sleeper bus to Udaipur. When we found the bus one man was loading the bus trunk full of packets and it was obvious that our backpacks would not fit in there. So we had to take our big backpacks into our sleeper bunk, which was hardly big enough for two persons in the first place. After driving a while on the highway the bus driver decided to take us off the beaten track onto a bumpy small road. So there we were, packed into a tiny sleeper bunk with all our luggage, driving somewhere on the indian backroads in the middle of the night in a bus with broken pipe making hell of a noise, bouncing from side to side and occasionally hitting our heads into the walls, and trying to get some sleep. No wonder we didn't get much.