Falling asleep in the desert after a camel safari while admiring the stars in Jaisalmer is one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

This is the story of how I ended up there.

Note: at the end of this post, I’ll link a Spotify playlist of songs you can listen to when you’re stargazing yourself or when you want to feel blissful when looking at a sunset.

I included a bit of this experience in my travel videos. Here’s one of them:

Part 1: How I ended up in India

About a year ago, I was trying to figure out where my big summer holiday was going to take me in 2019.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I wanted to go on a group tour, so I started looking into Belgian travel agents that offer group tours to far-away countries. After all, I believe most countries in Europe can be visited as a solo traveller relatively safely.

I wanted an adventure that only a group tour would be able to give me.

I quickly came across Joker, a Belgian tour operator that specialises in sustainable small-group tours. One of their concepts is a trip where everyone is older than 18 and younger than 26. And that immediately spoke to me.

Related: 10 things to know before booking your first group tour

And so, after a while, I ended up with a short list of potential candidates for my summer trip with Joker.

• A 3-week road trip through Rajasthan, India
• A 15-day trekking tour through southern Norway
• A 3-week trip through Costa Rica and Nicaragua
• A 3-week adventure in Malaysian Borneo
• An 18-day road trip around Sri Lanka

After finding out that the tours to Sri Lanka and Borneo were already fully booked, I was left with three options.

India, Norway or Costa Rica/Nicaragua.

Some further research told me that the Costa Rica/Nicaragua pairing was a bit above budget and the Norway tour was going to be too challenging physically.

So, I ended up booking a 3-week road trip through Rajasthan.

Part 2: How I ended up on a desert safari

I started counting down the days until I left for India. As time passed, months turned to weeks, weeks turned to days, and days turned to “I’m leaving tomorrow”.

We first spent some time exploring all the glory of Rajasthan’s capital city, Jaipur. As I describe our entire itinerary in this post, I won’t go into much detail about what we did.

However, after an unusual journey with the sleeper train, we arrived in Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer is one of the main cities in the Great Indian Desert and is known as the Golden City.

See also: How to study abroad in Salamanca (Spain’s Golden City)

The fourteen of us visited the Jaisalmer Fort and spent some time having a drink by the lake before heading out to the desert for our safari.

Quick disclaimer: I had my doubts about the ethical implications of a desert safari that included a camel ride. However, I was assured that the animals were treated very fairly and, as I noticed, they were.

We opted for Renuka Camel Safari to host this endeavour for us, and I’m very happy that we did. They provided us with a truly magical experience, and I’m not just saying that.

Part 3: Things to know before going on a camel safari

If you’re considering going on a camel safari in India yourself, there are a few things you should know beforehand.

How to get to your sleeping spot

If you’re starting your camel safari in Jaisalmer, you’ll probably have to take a jeep to get to the camels.

The jeep drivers will come pick you up at your hostel and they’ll know exactly where to go, so you don’t need to worry about that.

For us, the jeep ride took a little over an hour.

After we got to the camels, we still got to ride them for another hour or so.

Riding a camel is uncomfortable

Don’t expect this to be the best hour of your life.

Yes, it’s a great experience and you may never get to stroll through the desert on a camel ever again.

But don’t let the cushions on the saddle fool you: you will more than likely be uncomfortable throughout the whole ride.

In fact, even though it’s such a special experience, you’ll probably be happy that it’s over.

Things to bring on a camel safari

Every camel safari is different, but here are a few essential things you may or may not need to bring on yours.

• Toilet paper
• Toothbrush + toothpaste
• Change of clothes
• Snacks like nuts and dry fruits
• Hand sanitiser
• Plastic bags for trash

Some of these may be supplied by the company that organised your camel safari, but just check with them beforehand what you do and don’t need to bring.

The food in the desert

If your safari is like ours, you’ll ride your camel to a base camp where locals are already preparing your dinner.

And if you’re from the west, like me, you probably don’t want to see how they do it.

Although it actually tasted great, something told me that the preparation methods weren’t squeaky clean (nor should you expect them to be — you’re in the desert, for God’s sake).

Dung beetles are all around you

Yep.

You’ll see hundreds of dung beetles during your camel ride to base camp and you’ll see dozens more once you’re there.

My most – ahem – interesting encounter with dung beetles was when we woke up around 7:30 am. I had the beetles coming at me WHILE I was in the middle of a number two.

You’d better believe that was the fastest deuce I had ever dropped.

Photography in the desert

Before the sun goes down, it’s easy to take photos in the desert. The scenery around you is gorgeous enough as it is, and if you’re able to get some of that golden light (just before sunset or just after sunrise) in there, you’ll be great.

However, you should know that it’s very difficult to take decent pictures of the starry sky if you don’t know what you’re doing.

After the sun goes down, you’ll just have to live in the moment and enjoy the night sky without light pollution, coming to peace with the fact that you won’t have a good picture of it.

Part 4: How I ended up stargazing at 4 am

When I tell you that the most memorable part of our desert safari wasn’t the camel ride, sleeping in the desert or eating food that was prepared by locals, you wouldn’t believe me, right?

Well, it’s true.

The best part of going on a camel safari in India is stargazing.

Imagine this.

You’ve just had a typical Indian dinner of naan and dal while talking to the people who prepared it. Afterwards, you climb one of the sandy hills with your group – laughing, talking and drinking.

With time, more and more of your friends start to go to bed, but you’re not tired. And you find out that two other people aren’t tired either.

So you stay on the hill.

You look at the stars, listening to relaxing music and talking about love, happiness, friendship, sex, depression and fate.

Every few minutes, a shooting star passes by and you all make a wish.

That’s what it was like.

And all of a sudden, it was 3 am and we saw someone walk from the camp beds to our spot in the hills. Our group leader – who couldn’t fall asleep – lay down next to us and joined the conversation.

Just like that, we lost track of time and we were stargazing at 4 am.

Now, we knew that we had to wake up around 7 am to take the camels back to the jeep, which would take us back to the city.

But it was so worth it.

If I could do it all again, I would not hesitate one moment.

As a little bonus, here’s a Spotify playlist of songs we listened to while admiring the starry, starry night (yes, that’s a reference to Don McLean’s song).

Big thanks to Laura J. and Wannes V. for letting me use the great pictures they took during our camel safari! <3

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