September 11, 2007

Two days earlier as expected I returned to Delhi this morning. Unfortunately I had to cancel my camel safari on the fifth day due to an accident when I have been thrown off the camel. So yesterday was actually one of the worst days in my journey. Although I fell on my head I was luckily just slightly injured... just a few wounds, no fractures but my camera lense was broken unfortunately.
Anyway the tour started on 6th of September in the town of Palodhi which is right in the middle of the Great Thar Desert. Already there in Palodhi we were facing some problems with my camel when it got naughty like in the following picture...

Well, the following days the camel did quite a good job acutually. In Rajasthan desert you can not expect to see big sand dunes everywhere like in Sahara for instance. So sometimes you'll also see lot's of plants and crops and corn fields as most of the desert people there live from agriculture and livestock farming. But a few sand dunes can still be seen there...


Although the sand dunes were not that imposant I had a very interesting journey exploring rural desert life. And this is what I mainly wanted to capture with my camera... the way people are living in the desert, their housings, their colorful dresses, etc. Therefore I experienced an exciting five day trip in which I did not only see rural life but also felt it myself when sleeping on sand dunes and having meal with locals... okay often it was really ordinary and not always very delicious but this is hard desert life.
So also the people where really very poor they tried their best to offer me reasonable hospitality. On the other hand I have to say that I sometimes felt like being an animal in a wandering circus, everywhere we reached people came staring at me, okay I was quite an exceptional guest but they didn't stop it. Sometimes it was very disturbing...

As described earlier I was facing the accident on the 5th day of the journey and had to cancel the trip suddenly. Fortunetaly it happened in a village that is linked by a local bus. For around 500 kilometers it took me around 22 hours to reach Delhi by today morning. First I was going on a small local bus that was achieving all the little villages till I reached a bigger place from where I had to take another bus to Bikaner. For the 50 kilometers to Bikaner I had to travel on the roof top of the bus what was actually more comfortable than travelling inside the highly overcrowded bus... Travelling on the roof top of buses is illegal in India and very dangerous but everyone does it and the bus companies are just interested in getting high profits. Safety is not of any interest...
From Bikaner the torture went on when I had to fight hard to get a train ticket as I couldn't do any reservation in advance. Fortunately I succeeded to get the ticket but missed my connection train some 100 kilometers before Delhi due to some delay. Till now I have not seen a single train of Indian Railway Company travelling on time. The system seems to be very ailing.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Na, wenigstens bist Du heil angekommen, armes Kamel, armer Marcus. Tolle Bilder Marcus, Ich freue mich wieder sehr drüber.
Ruh' Deine müden Knochen aus und bleib gesund.
Uwe

Anonymous said...

Was hast du denn dem Kamel erzählt, dass es so unartig war zu dir? ;)
Ich hoffe, deine Wunden vom Sturz sind nicht all zu schwer und du bist bald wieder fit!
Das Foto beim Wasser holen ist echt genial!
Bin schon gespannt auf die nächsten Fotos! Bis bald und Grüße von Marina

Anonymous said...

heh heh..u've answered ur own question here..remember the blog entry u'd made earlier where u wondered what those people in the slum must have been thinking about u..!!
u've answered the same question here!!

hey! btw..u shud've visited jaipur too while u were on ur rajasthan tour..

and i wonder whether u are aware of this lil detail..neway i'll share it with u..
there's a reason why people in the desert area wear those colourful clothes..
its cz they are so eye catching that if they get lost in the desert/are caught in a sandstorm or the like..someone would be able to spot them and come to their rescue!!

I'm enraptured by the pics..
Waiting*eagerly* for more..

I'd recommend a trip to Orissa too*if that is not already part of ur itinerary*..try to capture the raw beauty of the place on ur camera!!

Goodluck and Godbless!!

Anonymous said...

Hi! I'm Japanese live in HK and met you in Nepal.
I'm always looking forward to checking your updated blog.

Good luck!!

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Fornell,
ich schreibe heute in Deiner Muttersprache. Zuerst einmal vielen Dank für Dein ausführliches Mail und Deine Bereitschaft, der Dialogveranstaltung zu "Megastädte in Asien und die Bedeutung der öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel am Beispiel Indien und China" zu helfen. Zu Deiner Information: In dieser Veranstaltung würden wir durch Materialien, Bilder und Texte sowie Filmausschnitten als Musterbeispiel der örtlichen Probleme mit Fachleuten aus der Wirtschaft und Politikern diskutieren. Die Fotos, die4 ich nachfolgend kommentiere, sind ein gutes Beispiel für Verkehrsprobleme. Man sieht auf dem Foto, dass bei einer möglichen plötzlichen Vollbremsung u.U. eine Menge Passagiere vom Dach des Busses herunterfallen. So ähnliche Fotos in großen und kleinen Straßen Indiens können die Teilnehmer der Dialogveranstaltung eine gute Erklärung geben. Die Lösungswege müssen gesucht werden. Hier sind die Stadtplaner und Verkehrsexperten gefordert und werden zu Wort gebeten. Ansonsten sind die Bilder auf deiner Homepage sehr bedeutend, von der Regionaletwicklung einer Dorfgemeinschaft bis hin zur sauberen Wasserreservoir sehr gut zu sehen. Ich hoffe, dass Deine Reise bis zu Deinem Praktikumsabschnitt erfolgreich und gut verläuft. Nochmals vielen Dank für die Bereitschaft, uns Fotomaterial zur Verfügung zu stellen. Wenn ich hier aus Deutschland irgendwie zu einer Hilfe beitragen kann, will ich das gerne tun. Please convey my best regrds to the family of Uday Prakash, also best wishes from Andreas Bigalke and the team of AASF to him and his family.
All the best and have a nice day.

Dr. A. Wais

Unknown said...

Hi Marcus,

Your updates are more intresting. meaningful pictures!!!
Last semster I studied about water quality standards in Europe and now when i look at the picture of water scarcity and compare it with the increasign degree of water purification in europe...i question myself Are they allowed to think about the quality of drinking water?? I wonder, Who makes standards and legislations for them and how they will be able to understand the meaning of quality??
Your picture reflects a real meaning of laws, rules and increasing needs of human being (Darwin's principle for life).

Water for a life or life for water!!