Camel Rides and Rickshaw Drives

The next morning I woke up slightly later than normal, 7:30, and went to eat a nice breakfast with my group. We then left and met a bunch of men with camels outside of our fortress hotel to go for a ride. We all partnered up, and I sat on my camel with my friend JP. We went on a beautiful stroll around the village of Samode. It was an amazing experience, but yet we still all felt pretty guilty about riding the camels. Since we had gone to an elephant sanctuary just a few days prior, where we heard stories of animals being abused and made to give people rides, we all felt very strange about having these camels give us rides around the village even though we knew they were not being abused like the elephants were. Nevertheless, it was still a great experience that we were happy to take part in.

Me and JP on our camel

After we finished, we went back to our hotel and swam in the pool for a few hours. In the hot Indian weather the pool felt amazing, and we spent our time discussing our weddings and having handstand contests. We even ordered milkshakes from the hotel and drank them on the poolside, until we had to get our things together to check out at noon.

A man at our hotel

Once we left, we got onto our bus and made the hour long ride to the city of Jaipur, and checked into our quaint hotel called Jas Vilas. We had lots of time until our next activity, so I took a nice two hour long nap. I was on Malarone, the Malaria medicine, which is said to give users the side effect of extremely vivid dreams- and they’re right! I remember having intense dreams at different parts of the trip, but especially this day.

After nap time, I met with the three other cultural geography students about our on assignment projects, and then it was time to go to dinner. Our bus took us to a pretty fancy place where we had a delicious dinner and desert, and also got to experience some more bonding time as a group. After dinner was over, however, the real fun began. I’m not exactly positive about what happened, but I’m pretty sure that there was some sort of miscommunication about when the bus was supposed to come pick us up from the restaurant. To fix this problem, we instead all took rickshaws home! We had been begging our trip leaders to let us ride in them for the whole trip and they had always said no, but they finally gave in. It was absolutely amazing and completely terrifying. Indian city streets are extremely busy and hectic, so we kept thinking we were going to crash constantly. We didn’t, though, and we all got back to our hotel in one piece, full of adrenaline.

After we returned and all said good night, I went to the hotel’s computer room and talked to my family and friends for a few hours since my phone was still lost somewhere in the Himalayas. It was nice to calm down after our hectic night, even though I wished I could do it a million times over.

3 thoughts on “Camel Rides and Rickshaw Drives

  1. Wow- your trip sounds so amazing, and I really liked this piece. I loved learning about little facts I’ve never known before, like the vivid dreams as a side effect from malaria medicine. I’ve also always wanted to ride a rickshaw, so that sounds really cool.

  2. Fun fact: A camels flavor of Pop Tart is cherry. (This is not based on any hard scientific evidence, only the anecdotal evidence of my uncle who was in the Navy.)

    Beyond that, I would say any night where people were participating in handstand contests is generally a good night. It sounds like every single day in India was a new adventure and experience. This is without a doubt part of the magic of travel and why I hope to be able to visit India someday. Even though it is sad you lost your phone in the Himalayas I am sure the trip was well worth it.

  3. Wow this trip seems amazing! How did you get involved with this organization? I realize after typing that question, that you might have answered it in your previous blogs… Anyways it really looks like an enjoyable trip, one that I wish I had learned about soon! Over all you post was funny and enjoyable to read! Great blog post!

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