Manvar Desert camp.

The drive from Rohet to Manvar was not too far. We all piled back into the trusty Toyota Inova and let Parveen kangaroo jump us all the way. Good old Parveen. What would we do without him?


It looked like this truck had done a few somersaults in its life.

 


With Parveen, our driver for the week

  


Goat herder along the road.





We arrived at Manvar at midday on the day of the great India v Pakistan semi-final. After lunch and a few hours of school work we had the gorgeous swimming pool oasis in the desert to ourselves.  Paul sat with a dozen Indian supporters watching the cricket. He had to be quite restrained as there was no yelling at the telly and telling the umpire he was wrong. He didn’t even have the remote control to throw at the screen!



The gorgeous swimming pool at Manvar Desert Resort

We met a lovely Swiss couple, Joe and Sonja, who came with us on an adventurous jeep safari across the Thar Desert. There were antelope, peacocks and deer to be spotted. One beautiful deer had just had a baby. The fawn was still stumbling about finding its legs and its mother’s milk.

The peacock is the national bird of India

The jeep trip over the sand was very exciting with some ridiculously steep descents that I think Paul would even have baulked at if he was behind the wheel. We just hung on at the back of the open truck and hid our screams of fear amidst our screams of exhilaration.

Our first stop was at a farmer’s mud hut. The adults were in the fields so the children welcomed us with the international language of cricket, throwing a ball to us and holding a bat for the return ball. The young boy was ecstatic to catch Paul out as I don’t think his sisters were that good at batting. He chased our jeep for a long way down the sandy track, throwing the ball to us in the back and then diving into the dirt to take the catch. Howzat!

Next, we stopped at a cobbler’s home. He was busy stretching leather while his wife stitched the patterned outer covering. The children here were extremely friendly and were delighted by seeing their pictures replayed on my camera. We had run out of soaps, pens and gifts so we all took off bracelets collected through South East Asia and gave them to the kids.

Approaching the next stop I watched a woman in a sari run about a kilometre to greet us at her hut. She raced in and got straight to work pumping the bellows and turning the wheel to blow more air onto the fire for her husband’s blacksmith work.  The husband sat there the whole time as she raced around getting the work done. He lit up a pipe and enjoyed a puff of tobacco as he waited for the fire to get hot enough to heat the metal. When all was ready, the wife ran around and got the biggest hammer to beat the metal as he sat there and tapped at it. 
Without a doubt, the women are the strength and heart of India. 
The men seem to be good at cricket though!

Right on sunset we arrived at the high point above our camp. Each day of our tour has led us to even more outstanding accommodation sites and this one did not fail to impress us. We had arrived at a modern 5 star Arabian Nights Bedouin camp. Apparently we are in the low season. This camp is to be packed away in the next week for 4 months as the weather becomes too hot. Yes, it is hot but nothing more than a good Sydney summer although no flies, no mozzies, no humidity and absolutely no crowds. The camp had 30 luxury tents, we took up two and there were another two taken with other guests.

With plenty of liquid refreshments, as is necessary when in the desert, we nestled into plush cushions in the sand and were literally waited on hand and foot as a ten piece local band played traditional Rajisthani music and dancers gyrated and twirled under a million stars.

The darkness of candle light in the desert gave us the courage to dance like nobody was watching and eat whatever was put in front of us.

Whisked away under a crescent moon to my bed of woven tapestries I fell asleep to the sounds of the desert and dreamt of not so faraway places.

The next morning we were woken at 6am to take camels across the sand dunes to watch the sunrise.

The magic of the moment was somehow overtaken by the whole country’s joy of beating Pakistan the night before. 

India won over pakistan. Nothing else matters now.



 In the desert you can't remember your name.

www.manvar.com/camp.htm 

Thank you Ms Cochrane

After having an amazing safari drive through the desert, we arrived at a spectacular camp ground. Our family got 2 tents, both with 2 single beds, a desk, and a luxury bathroom. We got half an hour to get ready before we watched the local tribes people put on a show for us. There were 10 cushy seats on the ground for us, and a big stage. The performance was full of dancing, singing and musical instruments. There was even a man playing a bowl! Towards the end of the show all the dancers ran off the stage and grabbed someone to dance with. I danced with a girl the same age as me at first. The first step onto the stage made me feel magical. I felt I could dance just like them. Then we swapped and I was with a small boy, probably the same age as Maisy. He was a really good dancer. He always held his arms in position and his hips could move so fast while the rest of his body was still. I think that some of the dancers were a bit scared of dad. He was so tall and at one time he swung the small boy around like a helicopter in the air.  At the end of dancing, mum said I would have never have been able to dance that well without all the time I had spent with Ms Cochrane. So, Thankyou so much Ms Cochrane.  I truly was in another world when I was dancing.

From Charlotte