Camels of the Middle East, Africa & Central Asia
The unusual title for my blog post is actually the title of one of my favourite films in the long running series of comedic ‘Carry On’ films that became a much loved staple of UK cinema in the ’50s, ’60s & ’70s.
This one had our bawdy crew of iconic innuendo spouting stars such as Phil Silvers, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims & Charles Hawtrey out in the Tunisian desert as part of the French Foreign Legion.
Camels have also played a comedic role in my travels down the years. Their expressions & mannerisms just make me smile and whenever I make the acquaintance of one fleetingly on any trip, it always adds to my enjoyment.
You could say that they play a camel cameo role in my travels.
Wadi Rum Camel
The ‘ship of the desert’ is of course associated with the Middle East and is a most valuable source of pack labour, meat and milk for the Arabic nations. They also have rich tourist appeal for many like me and are still a common dowry given by a bride’s parents to her groom.
The role of the humble camel in the evolution of the iconic Silk Road cannot be underestimated. Able to carry colossal weights and to travel easily across hazardous terrain for days, the camel was fundamental in carrying silk and spices from the Orient, through Central Asia & the Middle East and onto Europe.
It is not in much doubt that without the camel the Silk Road would never have existed. We therefore owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.
We have all also heard the stories of holiday bargain camel rides, only for hapless tourists to be stung for far more money to secure their inglorious dismount from up high. Notorious at Giza apparently!
Pyramids Camel Ride
Happily I have never fallen foul of such a scam, even though I once enjoyed (endured?) such a ride elsewhere in Egypt in the late ’90s.
Here are a few of the ungainly fellas that I have come across down the years.
Luxor, Egypt
Krak des Chevaliers, Syria
Palmyra, Syria
Turkmenistan – Ashgabat Market
Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan
Khiva, Uzbekistan
Wadi Rum, Jordan
Petra, Jordan
And finally, a guest photo from Globetrotter, Lindy Pyrah. Lindy recently gave a talk at Globetrotters Club in London regarding her remarkable journey atop the iron ore of a freight train in Mauritania in Saharan West Africa.
Spellbound as I was about the whole wonderful talk, one photo in particular caught my eye……..
Footnote:
I once visited Butlins on a day trip in my mid-twenties and spent all day playing a game called ‘The Arabian Derby’ where you had to roll balls into a slot to make your camel move in a race against 7 other ‘jockeys’.
I ended up with repetitive strain injury in my wrist and spent a small fortune to win a single small toy gorilla eating a banana!
It was addictive I can tell you!!
Something odd! Your posts are not showing up in my reader even though I am a follower. I thought you had retired but it looks like a WordPress blip. I will un-follow and then re-follow to see if that solves the issue.
Carry on Follow That Camel has to be the worst of the Carry On films? Phil Silvers just didn’t work in this British comedy. It was filmed at Camber Sands in Sussex.
I think it actually wasn’t an official carry on but I liked it. Camping is my favourite. Didn’t know the location! Weird about the reader thing, hope the follow/unfollow works.
Carry on up the Kyber was filmed in Wales!
Neither Follow that Camel or Don’t Lose Your Head had the ‘Carry On’ prefix.
I have tried the following fix, I hope that it works, I’ll look out for your next post.
Just posted a wordless Wednesday
It hasn’t shown up.
I read recently that Facebook restricts personal feeds to top 30 commenters/responders, maybe WordPress does the same?
Did you get an email to say I had posted? Not sure of the WP rules but will try and find out as I have seen a drop in comments in recent weeks.
No email! Curious!
My stats have bombed as well. I get a rush of hits on a posting day but very little on a day without posting activity!
Thanks – I have sent a help message to WP.
WordPress help said this. Not sure if it will sort reader too. Thanks for that information. I checked out Andrew’s account and he currently has disabled the option to receive email notifications for any site that he is following.
If he wants to start receiving email notifications of new posts again he will need to go to https://wordpress.com/me/notifications/subscriptions and uncheck the box for block all email notifications from followed sites.
Let’s see. I do have email notifications turned off because it is a chore to get rid of them and I only access posts through the Reader. Can’t see why that should effect the Reader. We shall see!