They call Jodhpur "The Blue City", because of the high concentration of homes that are painted Brahman blue (pastel, sky-blue). And it is very blue, but it is also very polluted - at least on the days that I was there. The haze was so bad at times, that the blue of the buildings appeared gray instead. The eighth stop on the whirlwind trip around India would be the weirdest yet! And even though I'd left the Ellies far behind in Bikaner, they are still a part of the story, but I'm guessing they don't know about that yet, because I haven't heard a thing about it...
Jodhpur, Rajasthan : February 4, 2011 - February 6, 2011
In saying that this city was the weirdest is an unfair classification for it. That being said, there was an aspect of it that just went above and beyond my experience in dealing with a specific type of person. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I usually seem to do when I have something that I want to say.
I was still recovering from the food poisoning I had suffered in Jaisalmer, at least the tail-end of it. The constant worry of a re-occurrence was keeping my diet to the bare minimum as it was and in Jodhpur, there was no exception. Finding the clock tower market was a God-send! Here, amidst the hawkers selling every imaginable trinket, vegetable, fruit and spices, was the best vendor of lassis I would find on my whole trip. They were fresh, cold and came in any flavour combination you could ask for. My preference was for banana, coconut-pineapple and a cardamon one. Since I was only here for two days, you kind of get the idea of how often I was consuming these things - yogurt is the best thing to reset your probiotics though after an illness.
I stayed at a rather nice hotel, called the Kuku Guest House. And while the hotel was nice, the owner was a little too much to deal with - likely the one reason alone that I didn't stay longer in Jodhpur. He was the epitome of paranoia, and to tell the whole story verbatim would take forever and a day. Suffice it to say, that he didn't believe anything that was told to him. And this is where the Ellie's come back into the story. When I told him about my stay in Bikaner with his uncle (Prakesh), and how I was with two Australian girls there who'd continued on to Pushkar, he didn't believe me. And this is the funniest part of all - he actually called the hotel in Pushkar that I'd mentioned the girls were going to stay at (the Lotus I think it was) to verify if they actually had gone there. Whatever the hotel was Id mentioned, they confirmed that two girls from Australia had indeed checked in. Like seriously? And he even admitted it to me, as if to say, "Hey, I didn't believe you, so I checked up on your story". He did and said many other things that just increased my concern over his mental health.
If you plan to go to Jodhpur, do NOT stay at the Kuku Guest House. It may be clean and it may be centrally located to some amazing markets and the Jodhpur fort, but the owner is nuts, with a capital N.
Speaking of the Jodhpur Fort (Mehrangarh), it is without a doubt one of the more impressive structures I saw on my travels. Standing sentinel over the city below, Mehrangarh is a mighty palatial fortress whose walls are lined, to this day, with the cannons that once defended it from invaders. It's main road is a steep incline, with many sharp turns, each with a spike-studded gate, which in old times, prevented charging elephants from getting enough speed to break down the doors. What once was the palace for the rulers of the region, now stands a museum, donated and maintained by the royal family. Each accessible chamber is lined with displays of just about every sort of antiquity you would have seen in times long past, when the fort was very much still in use for what it was built for. Included in the cost of admittance is an audio tour (300 rupees), which has very detailed information about each section of the fort you are walking through. You really do get a sense of the history of the fort, and of each room you pass through. And the views from the ramparts of the city below are breath-takingly beautiful.
It was here in Jodhpur that I met my first Quebecers, two girls from Sherbrooke. We passed an hour or so over a meal discussing India, home and everything inbetween. And the food at the Havali was fantastic - I ate an Aloo Gobi (potatoes and cauliflower in a yellow curry), white rice and two chipatis (gotta have bread to soak up the curry). All told the meal was about 100 rupees, or around $2.20 CDN. A little expensive for Indian standards, but it was on a rooftop Havali that was rated at 4 stars, so I can excuse the slightly inflated costs.
Thats one of the things to be careful of when packpacking India really, the more somewhere caters to the white tourist, the more it is going to cost - and there is no guarantee that the food will be better than from a vendor on the street who will see the same meal for 1/4 of the price. Usually, the food is better on the street anyways, for any number of reasons, not the least of all being that it is made to order, usually, and you are there watching it be made. So, they take extra care in the preparation. That said, there were times when the restaurant equivalent of street food was to die for, which it was at the aforementioned havali.
On the last afternoon I would spend in Joghpur, I ventured deep into the heart of the city, and came across a parade of sorts, that was literally a sea of varied colours, all vibrant and full of life. I never did figure out what the festivities were about, although I did some deduction and settled on believing it was something to do with the ancient past for this area of Rajasthan - each celebrant on the truck-beds was dressed ritually and barbarically - some looked kind of like Fred Flintstone to be honest. It was an incredible photo-fest to be sure - everyone wanted their photos taken by me, assuming I was some sort of photo journalist or something. At one point, a float full of women even tried to cajole me into mounting the truck with them to dance; I declined of course, I didn't want to seem like I was making a mockery of their festive event. It was highly crowded though, and full of music and singing and dancing! It was likely one of the more memorable moments of witnessing Indian celebrations that I witnessed on my travels, to be sure!
But alas, because my innkeeper was such a freak, I decided it best to get under way and on the road to Udaipur, to see the Lake Palace Hotel in the middle of Lake Pichola. I even took a hookup from my innkeeper for a family run hotel in Udaipur, with promises of a great price, rooftop view of the lake and all the bells and whistles that I'd gotten accustomed to on my travels. You'll find out how well that turned out later...
Boarding an early morning bus, I departed Jodhpur at 7:00am and had one of the wildest rides of my life! More on that later too! Even though the guy running my hotel was crazy as hell, Jodhpur is definitely a place I would like to return to again, if for no other reason than to stand atop Mehrangarh one more time...
Jodhpur, Rajasthan : February 4, 2011 - February 6, 2011
In saying that this city was the weirdest is an unfair classification for it. That being said, there was an aspect of it that just went above and beyond my experience in dealing with a specific type of person. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as I usually seem to do when I have something that I want to say.
I was still recovering from the food poisoning I had suffered in Jaisalmer, at least the tail-end of it. The constant worry of a re-occurrence was keeping my diet to the bare minimum as it was and in Jodhpur, there was no exception. Finding the clock tower market was a God-send! Here, amidst the hawkers selling every imaginable trinket, vegetable, fruit and spices, was the best vendor of lassis I would find on my whole trip. They were fresh, cold and came in any flavour combination you could ask for. My preference was for banana, coconut-pineapple and a cardamon one. Since I was only here for two days, you kind of get the idea of how often I was consuming these things - yogurt is the best thing to reset your probiotics though after an illness.
I stayed at a rather nice hotel, called the Kuku Guest House. And while the hotel was nice, the owner was a little too much to deal with - likely the one reason alone that I didn't stay longer in Jodhpur. He was the epitome of paranoia, and to tell the whole story verbatim would take forever and a day. Suffice it to say, that he didn't believe anything that was told to him. And this is where the Ellie's come back into the story. When I told him about my stay in Bikaner with his uncle (Prakesh), and how I was with two Australian girls there who'd continued on to Pushkar, he didn't believe me. And this is the funniest part of all - he actually called the hotel in Pushkar that I'd mentioned the girls were going to stay at (the Lotus I think it was) to verify if they actually had gone there. Whatever the hotel was Id mentioned, they confirmed that two girls from Australia had indeed checked in. Like seriously? And he even admitted it to me, as if to say, "Hey, I didn't believe you, so I checked up on your story". He did and said many other things that just increased my concern over his mental health.
If you plan to go to Jodhpur, do NOT stay at the Kuku Guest House. It may be clean and it may be centrally located to some amazing markets and the Jodhpur fort, but the owner is nuts, with a capital N.
Speaking of the Jodhpur Fort (Mehrangarh), it is without a doubt one of the more impressive structures I saw on my travels. Standing sentinel over the city below, Mehrangarh is a mighty palatial fortress whose walls are lined, to this day, with the cannons that once defended it from invaders. It's main road is a steep incline, with many sharp turns, each with a spike-studded gate, which in old times, prevented charging elephants from getting enough speed to break down the doors. What once was the palace for the rulers of the region, now stands a museum, donated and maintained by the royal family. Each accessible chamber is lined with displays of just about every sort of antiquity you would have seen in times long past, when the fort was very much still in use for what it was built for. Included in the cost of admittance is an audio tour (300 rupees), which has very detailed information about each section of the fort you are walking through. You really do get a sense of the history of the fort, and of each room you pass through. And the views from the ramparts of the city below are breath-takingly beautiful.
It was here in Jodhpur that I met my first Quebecers, two girls from Sherbrooke. We passed an hour or so over a meal discussing India, home and everything inbetween. And the food at the Havali was fantastic - I ate an Aloo Gobi (potatoes and cauliflower in a yellow curry), white rice and two chipatis (gotta have bread to soak up the curry). All told the meal was about 100 rupees, or around $2.20 CDN. A little expensive for Indian standards, but it was on a rooftop Havali that was rated at 4 stars, so I can excuse the slightly inflated costs.
Thats one of the things to be careful of when packpacking India really, the more somewhere caters to the white tourist, the more it is going to cost - and there is no guarantee that the food will be better than from a vendor on the street who will see the same meal for 1/4 of the price. Usually, the food is better on the street anyways, for any number of reasons, not the least of all being that it is made to order, usually, and you are there watching it be made. So, they take extra care in the preparation. That said, there were times when the restaurant equivalent of street food was to die for, which it was at the aforementioned havali.
On the last afternoon I would spend in Joghpur, I ventured deep into the heart of the city, and came across a parade of sorts, that was literally a sea of varied colours, all vibrant and full of life. I never did figure out what the festivities were about, although I did some deduction and settled on believing it was something to do with the ancient past for this area of Rajasthan - each celebrant on the truck-beds was dressed ritually and barbarically - some looked kind of like Fred Flintstone to be honest. It was an incredible photo-fest to be sure - everyone wanted their photos taken by me, assuming I was some sort of photo journalist or something. At one point, a float full of women even tried to cajole me into mounting the truck with them to dance; I declined of course, I didn't want to seem like I was making a mockery of their festive event. It was highly crowded though, and full of music and singing and dancing! It was likely one of the more memorable moments of witnessing Indian celebrations that I witnessed on my travels, to be sure!
But alas, because my innkeeper was such a freak, I decided it best to get under way and on the road to Udaipur, to see the Lake Palace Hotel in the middle of Lake Pichola. I even took a hookup from my innkeeper for a family run hotel in Udaipur, with promises of a great price, rooftop view of the lake and all the bells and whistles that I'd gotten accustomed to on my travels. You'll find out how well that turned out later...
Boarding an early morning bus, I departed Jodhpur at 7:00am and had one of the wildest rides of my life! More on that later too! Even though the guy running my hotel was crazy as hell, Jodhpur is definitely a place I would like to return to again, if for no other reason than to stand atop Mehrangarh one more time...
