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Published: October 30th 2007
The Blue City
Yes it's blue.So we left The Pink City and headed for the blue one by bus (awful journey altogether involving extensive standing, bribery, ignorant people speaking hindi and needing to use the toilet for 7hrs!)...
But we made it.
We checked into a "hotel" that more resembled an abandoned warehouse, where we stayed for several nights without seeing a single other person, let alone staff. But when we did eventually meet the family running the place, it turned out that they were very nice and very busy, preparing for a wedding...that we got invited to!!!
We had all hoped that we might get to go to a hindu wedding while here, but hadn't imagined it would actually happen- so we were all really excited!
Jodhpur itself is a really nice city, much smaller than the others we have visited and a lot cleaner (though still there are a lot of animals roaming) and it is indeed really blue! We didn't do much in terms of sightseeing but we did check out the Meherangarh Fort, which turned out to be the coolest that we'd seen so far, very imposing and with amazing views of the city. There are also a few
The Blue City...
The Fort. It is not blue. nice little lakes tucked away amongst the alleys and lanes that make a very welcomed rest stop from the heat, if you can find them. We stayed in the oldest and least touristic part of the city, which was really nice because the people were friendly and the markets wern't too expensive.
From Jodhpur we took a lengthy detour to Jaisalmer (blog to follow in due course) and returned to Jodhpur for the wedding a week later, staying in the same guest house. Actually, we arrived into Jodhpur the second time at 4am so we slept on the floor of a neighbouring guest house's common room...and then checked into Veggi's!
Hindu weddings take place over 10 days, where they have music, feasts and dancing every night. We would only be there for the most important 4 days though. We rented traditional outfits and bought our own saris (mine's blue and sparkly!!) and assorted jewellery and bindhis and camel leather shoes(!) and got our hands painted with wedding mendhi.
On the first night we just ate and danced and on the second we attended the actual ceremony. To be honest, this was both amazing and rather boring! We all
The Blue City....
The street festival. left at 7pm with a full brass band, the groom on horseback, 160 guests and a string of children carrying chandeliers on their heads and paraded all around the city dancing as we went. The reception and ceremony was held in an incredible garden all lit up with lanterns and fairy lights and neon trees and umbrellas that had a massive stage for the happy couple. And the food was amazing (and loads of it). We all danced for a few hours until the bride arrived (dressed in the most gorgeous sari ever and dripping in gold jewellery!) and then everyone "relaxed" for like 6hrs while the actual ceremony was held. That part was a little less enjoyable but interesting to see nonetheless. The whole thing lasted until 8am!!! Two days later the grooms side of the family host a second reception that is almost as lavish as the first!! Altogether it was one of the most amazing experiences we've had so far and unbelievably kind of the family to invite us.
Jodhpur has a lot of ohter interesting things to see and do but we were so busy we hardly got to see anything and overall it was
one of the nicest cities we're visited.
Next stop: Goa and the south (yeay- the beach!)...
It's November already- only 3wks left 😞
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