Jodhpur=The Blue City

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We left our guesthouse around 12:45pm headed to the bus that would take us on a 6 hr journey to Jodhpur. Pete was still quite sick at the time so he loaded up on immodium so he wouldn't be sick on the bus. The bus suprisingly was nicer than what we were expecting but don't kid yourself it wasn't a luxury coach by any means.

The nice thing was it left on time and arrived in Jodhpur around 6pm, meaning it was only 4.5 hrs long instead of 6 hrs. We saw many wild peacocks, goats, people working around their small farms, people along the roadside waiting for a bus to stop for them and lots of trash along our drive.

Pete also survived the journey with no bouts of sickness but now is taking WHO (World Health Organization) Rehydration Salts as he has had food poisening symptons for over 15 hours now.

When we arrived at Haveli Hotel Pete showered and rested in the room for the remainder of the evening. The symptons returned and then we decided to start Cipro, which is an intestinal anitbotic to get rid of any bug in his system.

Our leader thinks it was the Bagpiper, Indian Whiskey, and not any food as us others didn't get sick from the food while camping. I had 2 drinks of the whiskey and had gas throughout the night but Pete consumed about 5 or 6 drinks and was poisended. So if you travel to India don't by Whiskey as lots of it is homemade and doesn't go through the proper distilling process, which means you get the bad tap water of India in your system. When thinking back to the alcohol shop in Jaisalmer there were 2 men trying to get us to by the cheaper and then one was saying something about bad stomach problems but we couldn't really understand what he was saying as his English was very poor. He did say he drank 2 bottles of this whiskey everyday, but then again why did we take advise from a drunk? Lesson learned the hard way.

Pete survived the night without any symptoms and had his first meal at breakfast he ate some cornflakes, toast and hot lemon water. He has drank 3 servivngs of the rehyrdating salt packs and seems to be on the mend.

Jodhpur, The Blue City, blew us away today with 3 major sites: Mehrangarh Fort built in 1459, Jaswant Thada built in 1899 and Umaid Bhawan completed in 1943. The architecture at all 3 places was amazing as you can see in the photos and the pictures will speak many more words to you than I could write.

Mehrangarh Fort was where the royal family lived. Jaswant Thada is where the royal family members are cremated. Umaid Bhawan per wikipedia is " The Palace is divided into three functional parts - a luxury Taj Palace Hotel (in existence since 1972), the residence of the erstwhile royal family, and a Museum focusing on the 20th century history of the Jodhpur Royal Family."

Fun Facts: the building are blue to repel insects as the buildings are made of limestone which attracted the insects and the blue repels them

the orange hands picture is an old Hindu tradition, if the husband died at war then the wives put their handprint on the gates of the fort before jumping into a fire to take their lives as they weren't allow to marry again

most museums charge an entrance fee and an additional fee if you want to take photos, tripods not allowed at many places so far

we ate at McDonald's today which was a first for me and 2nd for Pete as he had fries from the McDonald's at the Delhi train station. I wanted to take a picture of the menu as there are no beef products in India due to worshiping the cow. I had a spicy chicken patty big mac and Pete had a spicy chicken wrap. Other options were chicken nuggets, spicy paneer(cheese) sandich/wrap, veggie burger and they even had Diet Coke (not Coke Light)

We returned to the hotel around 4pm and have been relaxing every since as we need to take care of our bodies due to having 2 more weeks in India. We have been on the road for 20 days now including traveling around China with Laurence and Laura and it starts to take a toll on one's health. Tomorrow, we are upgrading to a private taxi for our group to Udaipur instead of taking the 8-10 hr bus ride. We will be there for 3 nights in the Indian Venice.

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