Camel Cart Ride (part 2)

Saturday, 1 November, Pushkar

When Pati and BeeBee booked their camel ride at their guest house, the manager said "pay at the end." At the end of the ride, Pati paid the driver 2500 rupees. When he saw the manager, Pati told him he had paid the driver at the end of the ride. The manager told Pati that he meant at the end of the stay but he would sort it. The next day the manager came to Pati and told him it wasn't sorted.

The camel driver, who had been instructed not to accept money from Pati and BeeBee, decided the 2500 rupees was a tip and refused to give any of it up. It turned out that the guest house hired a camel ride company who hired the camel driver. Since all the regular drivers were busy, the camel ride company hired a random farmer from the fair to haul them. This helps explain the zero English policy the driver had during the ride.   The manager asked Pati to ride on the back of his motorcycle (sans helmet) to the camel stand "office" to resolve the problem. Off they went.

Pati had initially planned to offer the "boss man" his profit from the ride and go back to the guest house. After an intense discussion in Ragisthani (Pati supposed), the manager told Pati that the boss man considered the camel driver a scoundrel since 2500 was almost a month's income and 15 "tips" like this would buy the whole camel. It was decided that the manager, the boss man, and Pati would motorcycle to the camel encampment and thrash this out with the driver. Off they went.  

Pati wondered how they would find the particular driver among the hundreds in the encampment. The boss man called him on a cell phone. Pati was taken aback that a man straight out the middle ages had a cell phone but it worked and the two motorcycles raced across the dunes directly to him. The manager, the boss man, the driver, and several new friends then entered into an intense shouting match. Pati, not understand a word, did his part by standing and looking perplexed and foreign. He also wondered if anyone was armed.   At the end of the argument, the driver peeled 2500 rupees off of a rather large wad and it was given to Pati. Pati thought the boss man would take the money  - but no. Pati felt sorry for the driver and wanted to give him the tip he had originally planned which was 500 rupees (he had only managed to tip 100 the first time because he has a hard time digging money out of his security wallet). It seemed the driver was so offended that he would not accept Pati's tip. However, he was not that offended. 

When they got back, Pati paid the manager for the camel ride and the manager will pay the boss man. Pati isn't sure who will pay the driver since the boss man fired him for yelling at him. Pati would feel bad about this except the boss man only hired the driver one time and was unlikely to hire him again anyway. The manager said he was going to steal the driver's camel to get even with him but Pati thinks this is just talk.

Camel Cart Ride