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Published: March 31st 2008
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Jodhpur
The Blue City JODHPUR (THE BLUE CITY)
Jodhpur has to be the busiest and dirtiest place we have visited in India so far, but looking down from Meherangarh Fort and the palaces that dominate the skyline the city looks beautiful. Many of the houses are painted blue apparently to deter termites, but blue is also the colour of the high-caste Brahma of which there are large numbers here. The fort and palaces are amazingly well preserved and ornate, and the excellent audio guide really helped to conjure up a picture of life for the Marharajas who lived here. Despite the mayhem and mess of the streets we found Jodhpur to be quite friendly and a relatively relaxing place to spend a few days.
We are enjoying the excuse to eat curry every day and it seems to be keeping the 'Delhi Belly' at bay. An Indian breakfast usually consists of a paratha (bread stuffed with curried vegetables) but sometimes we opt for something more familar like scambled eggs; lunch is often a south Indian thali with several small portions of vegetable curries and dal served with chapati and rice; and dinner is typically a north Indian dish with meat served with naan. We
Jaisalmer
The Golden City are also getting quite a taste for banana lassi, a sweet yogurt drink. Alchohol is rarely shown on the menus here but a beer (Kingfisher) is always available if you ask, although it may be warm and when the bill arrives it will be marked as iced-tea or written on a seperate piece of paper, presumably bound for the bin later.
JAISALMER (THE GOLDEN CITY)
Hiring a car again to take us from Jodhpur we headed east, toward the Pakistan border and deep into the Thar Desert. We passed many military camps and machinery in the desert, a show of strength to Pakistan and a remider of the ongoing hostility between the two countries. Arriving in Jaisalmer the sandstone fort rises out of the desert like a giant sand castle or something from an Arabian fairy tale and is a very impressive sight.
We hadn't booked a hotel and were told that the one we had wanted to stay in was full, but then we got talking to the owner who by conincidence happened to be the best friend of the owner of the hotel we had staying in Jodhpur. He quickly rearranged some bookings and we ended
up in an enormous rooftop suite for a very good price. We think he was showing off and trying to show us how much better his hotel was than his friends - we weren't complaining!
Walking within the city walls it feels almost medieval and would have been so enjoyable but for the constant 'harrassment' from pushy touts. Jaisalmer is a town where the ecomomy is based around the tourists and the military and at times it can seem that everyone is shouting for you attention and your money. As one South Indian woman we met on the train out said "The Jaisalmer landscape is very hard - I think that people take on aspects of their landscape".
Camel safari:
We were glad to get out of town on the second day to do the camel safari we had booked. Driving through the desert women with bright saris would appear from nowhere through the heat haze carrying metal water pots on their heads and it almost felt like watching a documentary on tv except that we were in the middle of it. We visited remote villages and later met our camel men and mounting our camles we rode
Jaipur
The Pink City slowly off into the sand dunes of the Thar Desert. As the sun started to set we stopped to build camp and our camel men cooked us vegetable curry and chapati on an open fire whilst singing old desert songs, a magical moment - at least until one of their mobiles went off! That's the strange juxtaposition of ancient and modern in India, a bit like the feeling when you are on the internet and a cow looks in the window at you.
JAIPUR (THE PINK CITY)
The train journey to Jaipur was long and uncomfortable as we had only been able to get ourselves into a 3rd class sleeper and although it was air conditioned people were stacked three high in narrow beds. At stations on the way people were frying up snacks on the platform and serving chai in clay cups, but with limited time until the train pulls again it is every man for themselves as hungry passengers jostle to grab a bite to eat.
Arriving early in Jaipur we went off in search of a hotel but started to worry when we had been to four hotels and they were all full. We eventually
Celebrating Holi
The colour festival really hit the town found somewhere and found out the reason for the lack of rooms was the Hindu festival of Holi - the Festival of Colour. Jaipur is the largest city in Rajastan with nearly 3 million people and the sights of Jaipur are quite spread out so we hired a tuktuk driver for the day to see the pink city, Palace of the Winds, City Palace and Amber Palace. That evening we made the exhausting climb up to Tiger Fort (Nahargarh) to watch the sunset over the pink city. Along the way women sold dried cow pats (fuel for the fires) which had been rolled into neat shapes and threaded onto strings. The night before Holi people lit fires in the streets all over the city to symbolise the banishing of evil and the next day covered themsleves and others in coloured powders and celebrated. A great atmoshere but the tuktuk drivers used it as an excuse to triple their prices!
Elephant Festival:
Whilst we were in Jaipur the Rajistan Tourist Board had laid on an elephant festival as part of the holi celebrations. An elephant beauty contest was to be followed by an elphant tug of war against the tourists,
cultural singing and dancing and finally elephant polo. We we particulary keen to see the polo so we went along. It all started very well and the elephants looked stunning in all their regalia but it gradually decended into chaos when hundreds of people 'stormed the pitch' to get a closer look and the commentator screeched into the (very) loud speakers for people to sit down, to no avail. The elephant polo never did happen. Just another day in India!
There are two pages of photos this time.
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David
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Looks amazing. Just what we need to see on a grim Monday morning at work...