Thursday, November 2 Camel Safari, Jaisalmer Shopping, Bhang Lassi

Today my pelvis was excruciatingly sore from camel riding. I still wanted to ride on, but the rest of the group wanted to just ride back in the Jeep. After playing in the dunes and rolling down a huge hill, getting sand everywhere, we had breakfast and rode the camels back to the small town. Then we were picked up in the much more comfortable Jeep and rode back to the hotel. We spent the rest of the day lounging and shopping. We demanded our turbans because they weren’t given to us for the safari (because “the Jeep with the turbans got pulled over by the police and had to go back”). Please. I went shopping, and got a bunch of bindi (probably completely useless because who’s seriously going to wear those?), camel t-shirts (how touristy), and postcards. Some of the fabric shops had signs hanging on the blankets and clothes saying “No need for Viagra with this blanket”, “Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinski blanket”, and “Make your boyfriend less ugly with these clothes”. I ate lunch with Tara and Snehal at a rooftop restaurant and got two thalis, because apparently one was just not enough. Then after a while we went to the same restaurant for dinner, and I felt like I was in a time warp; it took two hours to get our food. After eating, I went to the government-run Bhang Shop. The menu is hilarious. It reads: “Bhang is marijuana/cannabis/dope/grass. Hydro cannabis 2 old KNW case pure or prepared with fresh food stuff prepared at this store. We do not sale hash, oil, opium, heroin, crack cocaine, etc. Just bhang is Delta 9 THC. Sale and use is legal. Bhang is non addictive it is a soft drug even regular user do not usually graduate to hard drugs. Bhang has verity of effects. Elevation of moods (mild euphoria), increased perception of color and sounds, ETC., promoter of relaxation and feeling of well-being, increased apetite and mild aphrodisiac, increase in heart rate and blood pressure mild and transient anti illness (nausea) like any drug, about 10% passes out in breast milk. Bhang to be taken by eat drunk or smoked. The effect depends on the dose taken, the effects of Bhang are quit unlike alcohol is simply a depressant drug its initial euphoric effects simply due to definition Bhang is mild stimulant, compression between alcohol is not valid. Do not anticipate or analyze just enjoy, you will not see pink elephant, jump of tall building, or turning into an orange, you will remember what you experience next morning.” Microsoft Word had a fun time spell-checking that passage. And I was generous on the punctuation. It sounds like someone with no knowledge of English typed this passage into Freetranslation.com, and they just printed it up. That, or they just had way too much Bhang. They sold cookies, lassies, juices, chocolates, and full cakes on order. I decided to get a Bhang lassi, because I’ve heard it’s pretty fun and when else am I going to get the chance to get one? So I had them make me a bhang lassi for $1 and I drank it. It tasted like a lassi, but with grass clippings in it. The other people in the shop were crazy. All had dreads, and all were French and Israeli, and talking about how much their feet stink. They had a few chairs and a poster of Shiva, like you see everywhere else, but his eyes were half-shut like he was high. We caught our 11pm train to Jodhpur, and I was again in sleeper class while the rest of the group was in 3AC. The only effects of the bhang were that it made me tired, made me stare at things for a while, and made me nauseas and have diarrhea the whole next day. It wasn’t lying when it said “nausea” they weren’t lying, apparently. I’ve actually been warned that these Bhang lassis will incapacitate tourists, for days at a time because they’re so strong. I thought it would be legit considering it was a GOVERNMENT-RUN establishment, but I wasn’t impressed besides the menu and the price.