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Published: August 27th 2013
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We had a bit of trouble with our train getting into Jodhpur. We arrived a bit early to the stop, and it didn’t seem like a main-enough city. However, an Indian passenger told us it was the last stop. We got off, and walked a bit, until we saw the train station sign, which was not titled “Jodhpur”. We quickly turned around to get back onto the train. But there was no need to rush, because the train wasn’t going anywhere; it had broken down, and no one knew for how long.
We teamed up with a group of young Koreans, who appreciated the small amount of Korean I spoke, and we all decided to wait a while longer. After about 30 minutes, we asked other train passengers, who said it could take anywhere from another 5 minutes to tomorrow to repair the train. We also tried to figure out where we were. According to one of the Koreans’ cell phone, we were about 8km from our hostel. As it was nighttime, we called our hostel to let them know we’d be late, and they suggested we just take a tuk-tuk. The first price that was offered was 200rs, but
we eventually got them down to 80rs, so we felt very proud of ourselves. Unfortunately the guesthouse was up a steep hill that the tuk-tuk couldn’t drive all the way to, but the driver was nice enough to lead us to it (yes we were skeptical of his intentions, but we saw signs for the guesthouse).
The first day in Jodhpur we visited Mehrangarh Fort. It was really close to our hostel, but up a big hill, and the sun really beat down on us. Also, because we entered from the side (and it’s a fort), we had to go up and down the hill a couple of times before we actually found our way into the ticket office area. The fort was pretty interesting though, and from up so high, we were able to see why Jodhpur is called The Blue City. The Brahmin neighborhood of the city paints their buildings this light blue color, and the contrast with the sandy landscape and the clear blue sky was beautiful.
Our hostel (Cosy (sic) Guesthouse) was in the blue Brahmin section of the city, which was architecturally charming and pleasant for walking. There were a lot of hills
and small alleys to investigate, and the streets were kept clean. However, for tourists, there weren’t really many restaurants nearby, and the shops didn’t have any of our favorite Indian snacks (and this becomes important the more you travel in India.)
A lot of our time in Jodhpur was spent in our room. We’d tired of sightseeing, and we also needed to plan the rest of our trip (booking trains, hostels, etc.). It takes a surprising amount of time to use a tablet to do those, and it didn’t help that the internet would suddenly cut out. We had the additional problem when booking train tickets that apparently we could only book 10 transactions a month with each account on the website. It takes a couple of days to create an account for a foreigner, so it wasn’t possible for my sister to just create one of her own. And, the train website is down every day from 8am-10am. In the end we had to go to the train station to buy our tickets (and tuk-tuk drivers in Jodhpur drive a hard bargain).
Our final day in Jodhpur, we walked to the main market area, and were unimpressed
Beautiful Designs
Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur after having been to Pushkar. We then attempted to walk to a memorial to some royals called Jaswant Thada. It was up a hill, but as we approached, we realized there wasn’t a road going up from that direction. We instead then asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us up there. He was nice, and honest, and actually said it was really close and we could just walk there, but he pointed that we should go the way we’d just tried to go. It was hot, and we kind of lost enthusiasm for it, so we just walked back to the hostel, and watched movies most of the evening.
Overall, our impression of Jodhpur was influenced a lot by our moods—we were just kind of tired of being tourists. However, it was a nice city, and it wasn’t tourist-centered. Its not being tourist-centered was good because there weren’t too many touts, and because so many cute kids said, ‘Hi/Hello!’ to us just to practice their English, and not because they expected something from us. It was bad because there wasn’t a whole lot of sightseeing to do. In addition, some more signage in English would benefit tourists. We should
Spiral Staircase
Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur have appreciated the relatively smooth sailing, because times were about to get a bit tougher.
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