odd game and praised the Indian captain
(and superstar) Virat Kohli appropriately.
Cows are holy beings in India and
have the right of way on any highway or
alleyway. We ventured away from Lonely
Planet hotspots and found hole-in-the-wall
chai shops, sipping milky chai and simply
watching these holy bovines go about
their business. Their business is, of course,
not much. They sleep a lot, preferably in
the centre of the road. Business-as-usual
operates around them with astonishing
flair – metalworkers clobbering something
with a mallet, barbers in pokey, dimly lit
“
THE PLANNING OF
THE TRIP WAS MY JOB.
THEIR ONLY WISH: ‘NO
TOURISTY STUFF. AND
WE WANT TO CAMP IN
THE DESERT’
“
rooms, small factories making hundreds
of kilograms of mithai (Indian sweets),
sari sellers, roti rollers and fruit wallahs
who have to watch out for the odd sneaky
cow that’ll reach for a guava when no one
is looking. Every now and again there is a
territorial stare down with a mangy dog to
see just who’s boss of the alley. The cow
wins every time and the dog scampers
off. Dad would store up his take-aways
and feed them to the cows, giggling
like a kid when their sandpaper tongue
thanked him.
When our legs gave up we simply hailed
a tuk tuk and carried on our ogling while
seated. There’s no need for the open-top
red bus tour in these parts.
CAMEL TRIPPING
Part two of our trip involved camping
in the desert. For that we headed to
Jaisalmer, a former medieval trading
centre in the western Indian state of
Rajasthan, in the heart of the Thar Desert.
Here we found a guy who knew a guy who
knew a guy (who had a friend in South
Africa, naturally) who would take us into
the desert, on the back of a camel, with
36 // MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE
This page: Camel treks with Team Reinders in tow and scenes from everyday India.