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Published: October 1st 2009
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Setting off early, we booked passage from Udaipur to Jodhpur on a private bus due to lack of any direct trains. Amazingly, trains in Rajastan are few and far between and tend to leave at silly times- either late at night or very early in the morning, arriving at equally unsociable times. Maybe that is a bit harsh but is certainly the case for the routes we want to travel, which is of course, the most important thing :-)
For a private bus, it was quite uncomfortable, overcrowded and the poor roads provided a 6 hour bone shaking experience. Our bags had to travel in the the luggage compartment much to our dismay. Upon pulling them out at the end of the journey, all dusty and battered, mine seemed to be covered in a not insignificant amount of red paint. The driver could see that I was pissed off and tried to clean in off with what I thought was a wet rag but later turned out to be a petrol soaked rag which leaked through onto my fleece, making it reek of solvent (gave it an emergency wash at the hotel and seems to be okay, fingers
crossed). Not a good start; a black mark against private bus companies from now on.
We negotiated a fare with a rickshaw to our first choice of hotel - which was full. Not getting any better. We told the driver to take us to our second choice but he said that it had closed down. Now from our research and experience, any time a driver says something like this which in the past has included that the hotel is full and even that the hotel has burned down, it usually means that the driver wants to take you to another hotel where he gets a commission from the owner for bringing guests. Wise to this, we insisted that he take us there anyway and he obliged. A short ride later, we turned up outside and amazingly it turned out that the place had actually closed. We seemed to have found one of the few honest rickshaw drivers in India; it took us back as so far we've always seen an ulterior motive. Knowing that our third choice wasn't far away, we decided to get out and walk.
Unfortunately, Jodhpur is a maze of winding narrow streets with few
land marks so we ended off wandering in the wrong direction. The same rickshaw driver saw us and offered to take us to our third choice free of charge. Suspiciously, we got in but true to his word we arrived where we needed to be a few minutes later, without charge. Things were finally looking up.
The hotel, 'Yogi's', is a tall blue building with a hollow square in the centre looking up from the ground floor all the way to the restaurant on the roof. Although a little pricey at £5 a night, it was very chilled out, there were lots of other backpackers staying and there was an excellent view of Jodhpur fort from the roof.
Jodhpur is known as the blue city because many of its buildings are coloured with a blue wash which is supposed to prevent insects and help keep the buildings cooler in the heat. Wandering around the streets, the place is a labyrinth of tall buildings and meandering narrow streets. The streets were filled with food scraps an rubbish and it reminded us of old York and would make an excellent setting for the next bubonic plague. Apart from this, we
were very impressed with the place and especially with the locals. Lots of people, especially children would say “hello” to us and wave. Normally such greetings are followed by “you want rickshaw?” or “you want to buy....?” It was a nice change.
We had dinner on the roof top, watching the sun set over the fort. The next day we got up early and climbed the steep hill to the fort - an impressive structure stood on top of a sheer sided hill. It reminded us a bit of Bamburgh castle. Our entry fee included an excellent audio guide and we strolled around the fort for a few hours. The architecture is very impressive and was much more like the Indian forts or palace that you may see in the movies. Apparently in its 500 year history, it has never been taken under siege. One thing I though was particularly clever was that after the long road leading up to the for, the path turned at a right angle to enter the gate. Apparently this stops charging elephants from building up momentum if the fort became under siege. Many people give Jodhpur a miss but it was well worth
stopping to see the fort and enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere. A big thumbs up from us!
We went back to the hotel and told the owner we'd be leaving and he was really a relaxed kind of guy and told us not to rush so we grabbed some lunch on the roof before showering and setting off for the bus station. We decided to take the government bus to Jaisalmer due to our bad experience the previous day, and because the only train left at 11:20pm, so we set off walking down the road, one of us sporting a blue backpack, freshly coated with red paint...
Other observations about India:
There are cows everywhere, often just sitting by the road and even sitting in the road blocking traffic.
Rules of the road. Right of way when coming to a junction or roundabout is simply determined by the size of your vehicle. Lorrys first, followed by buses, cars then auto rickshaws, an if you're on a motorbike or push-bike, then you'd better watch out!
Any road manoeuvre no matter how crazy seems to be perfectly acceptable as long as you beep your horn rapidly before,
after and during said manoeuvre.
There's not such thing as a free lunch. One guy we met said he was invited to lunch by a genuine enough guy. Lunch turned out to be in the middle of his brothers gem shop and I'm sure you can guess what the only topic of conversation was...
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david
non-member comment
Watch out for Bulls, with a red back pack
Look at the bright side, no- one will want to pinch your rucksack! You will have to get a ride with a bus carrying blue paint nect time, to put it right. As always, looks great.