Jaisalmer, India (CNN Business) We had left from Jaisalmer, a small city in the Western Indian desert state of Rajasthan, that morning. After driving past tents, camels and sand dunes for about an hour, we took a sharp left.

Rajasthan, the state where Jaisalmer is located, is known for its vast desert.

"Now we're entering the no network zone," our translator, Amrit Singh, turned and said to me. Minutes earlier my phone had been pinging with emails, text messages and Instagram notifications. They stopped completely.

We drove on for another 30 minutes, chatting and looking out at the barren landscape, suddenly without our six-inch screens to occupy us. After a few miles, we arrived at a small cluster of mud houses, a village called Bida.

We set up our camera to interview Sawal Singh, a man who said he was 35 but looked closer to 50. With Amrit translating from Marwadi — the local language — and encouraging our nervous interviewee, we asked him if he knew what the internet was. Singh gave us a blank stare.

Our first stop was Bida, a remote village with a few hundred residents.

When I asked if he had a cellphone, he held up a device smaller than his palm with a numbered keypad. He then got a bit more animated as he explained that there was a big "tower problem" in the area. He showed us how he had to climb up a big tree in the middle of the village to try and make calls. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't.