No Me Moleste Mosquito

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Pushkar to Jodhpur
Sion and Niki Hi everybody,

Jodhpur aka the Blue City; Sun City; the place where Jodhpur's got their name (surprise, surprise) and the place with flouro orange palm trees. As you walk out of the train station, you could be forgiven for thinking you've stepped right into the heart of Las vegas, that is, until you realise that there are no casinos, lots of rickshaws and slightly more turbans than cowboy hats, but the facade perpetrated by the bright lights and glowing plastic trees, although momentary, is at best, offputting.

We arrived two days ago from Pushkar, after Prakash insisted on one last 'conversation' before we departed, which certainly settled my phobia of indian buses long enough for us to get over the Snake Mountain and back to Ajmer to catch our train. We unreserved or general seats as it was a day train, and upon discovering that a small family had taken up residence on the three person bench i had chosen to sit on (bought to my attention by a young boy who had fallen asleep just behind my right buttock , I realised that a reserved a/c seat could have been a better option, but the five hours went by fast enough and we made our way to a wonderful little guest house called Cosy, where upon arrival we ate and drank beer (Pushkar being dry 'n' all, that Kingfisher or three tasted really good). The owners are a Krishna Brahmin family who are aparently not only not allowed to eat meat or eggs, but garlic and onion is forbidden too, which explained why our dahl tasted so crap, but is a little hard to understand in and of itself. Animal products such as meat, i get, even eggs, but surely it can't be sinful to hurt them poor bulbs, poor helpless cloves, strange, but i'm sure theres a reason behind it, and who am I to judge? We just stopped eating there.

We've only been here for a couple of days, and being on the edge of the Great Thar Desert ,we haven't really had a chance to do much, but there isn't much to do in Jodhpur so it sort of works out. We spent most of yesterday at Mehrangarh Fort (Citadel of the Sun) built in 1459 by Rao Jodha (after whom Jodhpur is named), the Maharaja of Jodhpur still runs the fort and has converted it into a museum, complete with audio tour, and the fort certainly lives up to its name as the most majestic in Rajasthan, set on a hill 125m above the city, with sheer rockfaces descending from the fort walls to the ground below, it is quite clear how and why this fort has never been successfully sacked. Rather than catch a rickshaw up to the main gate, like the cheap bastards we are, we decided to walk up, we managed to find an old, disused entrance into the forts surrounding wallas, where we came across the ghats, that could easily be mistaken for something straight out of one of M.C. Eschers works, and then clambered up the rocky outer edges of the fort to the Jayapol, there was such a strong sense of the history of the place, made even more notable by the fact that we were using a centuries old pathway that was almost frozen-in-time, rather than the sealed bitumen road a few hundred metres away, you couldn't help but ponder the men, women, prisoners, spies, guards, kings and exiles that would have marched along the walls outer edges just as we did, weird.

After the fort we made ouy way down the road to Jaswant Thada, Jopdhpur's Taj Mahal, a memorial to Maharaja Jaswant Singh II from 1899 and surrounded by a royal crematorium and some cenotaphs. The building is made of a wonderful white marble, and has spectacular views of the fort and the city looking south. Aprt from all the television transmitters and power lines, the whole area is quite serene and pretty, as far as desert and rocks can be 'pretty'. We've also been down to Umaid Gardens, which aren't really much to write home about, thers a zoo there but the exhibits all seem to be spread out a few hundred metres from one another making for a lot of walking in the sun, and they really didn't look that well maintained, depressing is probably the best word to describe it, so we wandered around the government museum, which as the lonely planet says "is home to a bunch of moth-eaten stuffed animals, which seem to be a requirement in government museums', and it has held true so far this trip, they really aren't the best taxidermists.

I should probably add that you may be wondering why all the houses in Jodhpur are blue. Well, traditionally blue signified the house of a Brahmin, however the practice of painting houses blue has been adopted by almost the entire city, and supposedly acts as a natural mosquito repellant, as well as givng the city a uniform and mesmerising glowing tinge of blue, that is remarkably unique if nothing else. As you look over the city from the fort, the 'crazed, cubist mass of Indigo angles' is like nothing you've ever seen.

We've had to make some adjustments to our intinerary, we went to book our train to Agra the other day, only to find out it is fully booked and then some, until the 6th of May, so rather than spend three weeks hangin out in Jodhpur, which i'm sure would be a blast, especially when you consider the heat and how much there is to do, we've decided to head straight to Delhi for a few days and then from there we go to Agra, maybe even on to Varanasi, othewise we'll head for the hills. So it's eleven hours on the train tonight, and you'll probably hear from us next in Agra after we've seen the Taj. Miss you all. Enjoy.

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Photos

Jodhpur's Funky Train Station
Complete with flashing neon lights, a steam train and flourescent orange coconut palms, JOdhpur Train Station is certainly unique.

Niki and Sion
Niki and Sion on top of Mehrangarh Fort overlooking Jodhpur's old city

Comments

[Dad/Kevin]

Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room
I see you are dressing to fit with the decor in Jodhpur. God, I long to be in India when I read your blog. Keep on enjoying. By the way a sattvic (yoga) diet excludes onions and garlic because of the extreme effect they have on the system rather than out of regard for the 'lives' of the onions.

[Ben]

I'm in Melbourne
That's right, you two aren't the only ones who can go travelling. I've only been here half a day and already I've spent about $500... hehe. Meant to tell you Sion, I've been very much enjoying "The English Army" by the Living End. Great song. Funny how I seem to be the first to comment on your blog entries... could it be possible that I spent entirely too much time on the net?............................................... Nah. Well, keep on keeping on, y'all. I'm just gonna laze around the Melb CBD and check out all the damn pretty girls who are about ten thousand times out of my league. Oh, and I'm not moving to Sydney anymore, Tom moved back to Darwin. We're moving in together there. Have fun. :)

[Ouaga]

Tom Tom
Hey guys, I like that you mentioned garlic. In Arabic, 'tom' means garlic, so every time I say my name to an egyptian we all have a hearty chuckle at this coincidence. And it never stops being funny, even after 250 times.