How do you attack that?

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And so we left Pushkar a few days ago and travelled west to the city of Jodhpur by bus! I don't really know why we paid for a seat on this bus as we both spent more time being bounced out it and getting heads stuck in the roof! it was fun for the first hour or so but after 4 hours i couldn't feel my arse! But anyway - we arrived in Jodhpur made our way to the hotel and straight away what stuck you about the place was the Meherangarh Fort - which we visited the next day.

And so we got up early(ish) in the morning and headed up to the fort. Driving up in the rickshaw the fort is very imposing even for a tourist and you can't help but think that armies would be wetting themselves riding up to the fort trying to take it over! It just seems to grow out from the rock! Spent a fair few hours in the fort listening to a very imformative and suprisingly not boring audio guide! It directed you to some of the courtyards and very impressive rooms that lie within the fort. After this we headed to Jaswant Thada - a very nice memorial to one of the past Maharaja's of Jodhpur.

Next day we headed out to Umaid Palace - which is very nice, but now being used as a hotel so we couldn't look around the whole thing. Also went for a small stroll around the old city with its bazaars and the Clock Tower which by my and Amy's reckoning is 7 minutes fast! And today we headed out to Mandore Gardens which had some very nice tombs - different from the others we've seen in India because they contain elements of Jain and Buddhist architecture! There was also a Hall of Heroes which contained colourful statues of Hindu Gods and that was quite cool even if Amy thinks it was a bit garish! On the way back we stopped at a temple for a quick look - now in the Lonely Planet it says "the temple also houses a local school" so we expected some room in a corner to be this school. But no - the whole temple was being used! And we were being ushered round this temple trying not to look embarrassed as we walked right through the middle of a class! To be fair to the kids, they looked up and then got straight back down to work - can't imagine that in England - there would be pandemonium!

So anyway - tomorrow we head down to the lakeside town of Udaipur and another jolting bus ride! Hope everyone back in England is doing good! Ant


** have added a few pics of Pushkar if anyone fancies a look at those! **

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Photos

Meherangarh Fort
Awesome! Apparently it's never been conquered and you can see why!

View from the Fort
And you can see why Jodhpur is called the 'Blue City'