We had another nice breakfast and my cheese and tomato sandwich had no cornflakes in it this morning, which was almost a relief! The guesthouse was quite busy though, so leaving for the camel safari was a bit rushed and disorganised so we weren't too sure what was going on. We were pushed into an auto-rickshaw and dropped at another guesthouse and then pushed onto a jeep. There were two others there - a middle-aged German man called Axel and a French Canadian lad called Jean-Francois (who we actually met at the fort yesterday through Volker, but he didn't know that). Both seemed equally bewildered so we were in good company. Then three Indian men joined us and we just drove out of town for a bit without talking.One of the men pointed out all the chilli fields in the area, and said that forty percent of the world's chillis are made in this village and then it was quiet again until we reached a Hindu temple.

It was an old and pretty place with lots of steps and towers and little grottoes with statues coverd in icing, silver foil and saffron powder. Flourescent lighting tubes looked a little out of place tied to the pillars of old archways, but that passes for street lighting here. Mosdt vilalges have them tied to trees at night. A lot of people were praying and offering us food and one of the men with us told us what the things were (cardamom, sugar and milk paste or oats and sugar and butter) and we tried them. Then we went onto a local Jain temple, which looked like a cross between a Buddhist one and a Hindu one. The Jains have a very strict faith that branched from Buddhism a while ago, and one of the noticable differences is that in their temples, the Buddha-like statues all have wide, open eyes and flowers on their chests.

We bought some water amid much protesting from the Indians - apparently all our water is provided, but we didn't know that. Then we just drove through villages for a while, and it was quite peaceful, if a little cramped. We stopped for lunch at a very dirty, dingy cafe and in honour of the presence of a few foreigners, a man wiped down the bench and table for us, making an even larger pile of rubbish on the floor. We had pakora, a paste of lentils or chickpeas deep-fried with chillis and it was really, really good, and served on a sheet of newspaper. After that we went to pick up a man whose house we were staying in, and we drove down roads that got progessively smaller until there were no longer any roads, just tyre tracks in sand. The countryside here was sand dunes, a few scrubby bushes, a tree here and there and a lot of wild peacocks, plenty of goats, some antelope and camels. We could see the dunes on the horizon.

We arrived at a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere. It was about ten feet in diameter, made of six foot high sandstone pillars with plaster in between and a high domed room of branches and straw. We were introduced to Chain, the Uncle, whose house it was, and he told us how much he liked the British. We scored immediate points by being married and for so long, and then the four of us foreigners sat around for a while, working out what was going on. It was actually really relaxed and friendly. J-F found a game board on a wall and started to explain it to us, and then Suman, the family's six year old daughter, came along and taught us to play. It's a cross between Subbuteo and shuffleboard with pool thrown in and very simple, but difficult. Suman was very good but managed to move the pieces so that she always won when she thought we weren't looking. The family's men went off to cook and Suman took an instant liking to me and we played weird clapping games for a while. Chain came along and asked if any of us had a plaster for a cut in his food, and I offered ours.We've not had a chance to use or first aid kit on ourselves yet, which I think is a good thing, and I had some antiseptic wipes and gauze. It was a horrible looking wound, though, and there wasn't all that much you can do for someone who wanders round barefoot in the desert all day. Before I put the bandage on he cleaned the area with hydrogen peroxide which foamed and bubbled quite disturbingly. It must have been rather painful.

When lunch was ready, we went to the family's house: two circular huts and a single-storey stone cube in a courtyard with a small wall round it, and all with swept, hardened mud floors. It was the only other building in sight, as far as the horizon. We sat on mats and ate potato curry, a little bit of mutton (goat) which was surprisingly tender, chapatis and millet bread (made from home-grown and ground millet) with our right hands which is the only thing I wasn't too comfortable with - not only is it hard work but after an entire day wandering round India, I can't help thinking a fork or spoon would have been more hygenic. After we'd had chai, the thick sweet milky tea, we were introduced to the camels. Chain asked if anyone wanted to ride the camel rather than sit in the cart and I volunteered immediately. I love camels, their freaky elasticated joints make them look like marionettes and they bounce around like they're having fun even when they're decidedly grumpy. Their legs, too, have too many bends: their back legs have hips, elbows, knees and ankles, so that when they sit down their legs do a concertina thing that makes my eyes water. Sitting up on Rata I my feet were more than six feet off the ground and I had a much better view from there than the others in the camel cart. In the shadows I looked like one of the three wise men travelling to Bethlehem. How cool?

We rode for about two hours along soft sand paths while a man led my camel to make sure she didn't abscond with me. It was all dry and dusty, with occasional houses amid the gorse bushes. Wherever we went children came running to see us and I managed to say Namaaste to them all even though it required two hands and I was holding onto a camel. It turns out that you can say it with one hand if you need to though, but I was fine, riding my bouncy camel like a professional. Four little boys seemed fascinated by us and ran alongside me for a while. One of them didn't want to take his eyes from me and ended up tripping over his feet which must have been mortifying for him, but he dusted himself off and carried on running. There were a lot of goats around, too, and tiny, very fast antelope with pointy horns. Peacocks grazed all over the place, mostly black and white ones but a few traditional blue ones too. And I saw green parrots in the trees and just the head and neck of one sticking out of a hole in a tree that looked barely big enough for it.

The sun set and I was getting tired and I let Axel ride Rata, the camel. It was nice to sit in a bouncy cart for a while! Peacocks had started roosting in the trees and they made funny silhouettes. We sat in our hut and chatted for a bit, a couple of guys came in and started singing and one of them sat ina corner and gigled and danced: he'd just drunk opium tea. We'd bought beer earlier in the day and, at 8% alcohol, it made people happy. Everyone sang in that strange Indian way that doesn't seem to have a tune and is more or less plaintive wailing, but it was nice. My nightmare happened, and we were expected to sing too. J-F sang a happy French Canadian song and we couldn't escape, so I suggested singing Good King Wenceslas with Mikey cos no-one would have known what it was supposed to sound like.The fact that no-one chucked us out made me thing we'd managed a passable version of Hindi singing...

We had supper back at the family house, another veritable feast to eat with our hands. CHain explained that guest eat first, then his family and then finally him and his wife, so they sat with us while we tried not to make too much mess of the floor. Chain was in the army and very proud of his regiment's history and connections with England. His wife sand, covering her face with her shawl because she was shy, and Chain's nephew sat and giggled and occasionally picked up a saucepan and drummed out of time. By midnight everyone was tired and there was a lot of debating about sleeping arrangements. There were three matresses on the floor and a bed, three men and me, I thought it was fairly straight forward. But Chain had other ideas. He wanted to know who wanted to sleep inside and who wanted to sleep outdoors. The problem was that no-one had decided, and we didn't realise it was so important. In the end Chain whispered to me that it would be more appropriate for a man to sleep with his wife away from other people, so we set up a couple of tiny charpoy beds outside. We had seven blankets on the bed and it was cosy but the bed wasn't long enough and it wasn't very warm, either. The desert gets cold at night and there was a very chilly breeze blowing. But I was tucked up in bed while Axel, J-F and Mikey chatted for a while and watched shooting stars. Some of them were so bright that even I could see them without my glasses.