To Ride A Camel

Shortly after lunch, Anne and I went in search of a batik shop which supposedly has great batik clothing, gifts, yoga shorts and so on. As we were walking, dodging cars, and repeatedly confronting our mortality (See Anne's post, Why the Chicken Really Crossed the Road) we actually saw three camels walking down the road. They were not free-range camels, they had humans attached to them. We were very excited.

After a long walk down the road we found the shop but it was closed which, obviously, was disappointing. We then realized we could use the time to update our blogs. So we walked back to the Internet cafe and the power was out so we went back home, after procuring some bottled water and what turned out to be delicious cookies.(My recent Ayurveda regime is a bit loose here....getting looser by the day, in fact.) We rested, read, ate cookies and then began the walk back to The Institute for practice. We heard the sound of bells ringing. As we looked to see where the sound was coming from we saw that one of the camels and his human was no in our neighborhood. I quickly take out my camera and take a shot and the opportunistic human who was attached to the camel brought the camera over to us and asked us if we wanted a ride.

"How much?" I say.
"200 Rupees," he answers.
"So much?" I exclaim, pretending to be shocked.
"Yes, it will be a very long ride madam."
"What about 100 rupees."
"No madam. 200 rupees."

I look at Anne who obviously thinks that approximately 5 dollars is worth it for the ride and nods at me. Meanwhile, the camel is bending down and coming to sit so that we can mount him and the local women are gathering around laughing at us. I dig through our money and since I only have 92 rupees, the guy agrees to let us ride the camel for 92 rupees. Not a bad deal.

Now, mounting a camel is one thing, but being mounted on said camel as said camel comes up to standing is a real experience. (Definitely not something you get to do everyday.) Oh, and by the way, this was a one- hump camel and we sat on either side of the hump. Anne in front of the hump, me behind her. The guy says to me repeatedly, "Hold on tight." And I was holding tightly on to Anne but he insisted that I hold onto the cage-like saddle apparatus that was making the whole riding- a -camel- thing even possible. And thank God I was holding on tight because first, the camel lurched forward to get his back legs out from the folded position underneath him. Then, he lurched back as he unfurled his front legs and then there were several smaller, yet not less exciting lurches as he came to his full upright stature.

By this time we were laughing so hard we were crying. The near-hysterical state didn't exactly help us meet the new and very real challenge of actually staying on the camel for the walk down the street. I was thinking that it would be a real shame to fall off a camel and have to report my injuries to Geeta on Monday in class. ("Well, Geeta, I am wondering if you know a special sequence to help me with the concussion I sufferred from falling off a camel on my way to practice on Saturday....)

Anyway-we have pictures of the camel but not one of us on it as we were both on it and since I was holding on for dear life I wasn't really free to photograph the moment. I probably could have asked one of the women who was standing nearby and laughing to take a picture of the silly white girls, but well, at that point it seemed a bit much. In retrospect, I think we had crossed the threshold of "too much" when we agreed to the ride and straddled the hump....