Elephant Pilgrimage
Our elephant driver gave me a scare when he started up the side of the mountain with my camera still in the hands of our tour guide (who was getting a shot of us on the elephant). Thankfully, Mona was with me and managed to communicate to him in Hindi that he should stop by the edge of the wall, where we somehow reclaimed the camera. While I'm sure it would have ultimately arrived safely at the top of the hill, I would have missed all the great shots on the way up! Not that it was easy to take a picture - elephant rides are bumpy!
The "drivers" were a cheery bunch, singing songs to no one in particular and shouting salutations as they passed each other coming back in the opposite direction. In fact, being on an elephant is not so unlike Delhi traffic in a rickshaw... except that there weren't as many near collisions. This guy kept telling the passengers to shift around and distribute the weight in their rectangular bamboo saddles - we saw one couple leaning so far forward that the whole elephant was nearly atilt and they dropped their camera bag! The elephanteers were very deft in using their many implements to grab it off the ground (even the elephant helped!) and return it to the couple.