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Other entries in Jodhpur City

The Blue City

We were unable to get a decent class of train to take us out of Ahmedabad, so we had to make do with an overcrowded compartment. It was a fairly long train journey, and within an hour or so the people sat with us had started talking to us...except they barely spoke any English. Then another guy from the next compartment along joined us, making it a rather squashed attempt at a six hour conversation in which neither party can really understand the other. We managed to establish that they weren't getting off at Jodphur, but were in fact going further North to the state of Punjab. They seemed like...interesting...people, drinking what looked like meths (they called it "Home made wine") from a plastic bottle, which they diluted with water every now and then. One of them told us that he is married but also has two girlfriends - one for the morning and one for the evening! Another one was asking about the differences between marriages in England and India (i.e. that they have arranged marriages, and we don't). He wanted to know if it would be possible for an Indian (i.e. him) to marry an English girl. We said, yes, it would be...and then he asked if we could get him two or three white girls to marry when we go home! Don't think he quite understood just how different things are! They seemed like a bunch of playboys to me; we call them the Punjabi MCs :O)

Anyway, we arrived in Jodphur and got a Boss to take us to our guesthouse, which was fantastic. Everyone who worked there was part of the same family - the cleaners, the cooks, receptionists...all related. We were basically staying with a family in their house, except they have about fifteen rooms full of other travellers. The rooftop restaurant had an incredible view of the Mehrangarh Fort...

Speaking of which, wow, this is amazing! Possibly the most spectacular thing we've seen so far in India. It is absolutely, utterly massive...covering the top of a hill that seems to stand out in the middle of nowhere. It towers over the restof the city...which, by the way, is almost completely painted blue, hence Jodhpur having the nickname 'The Blue City'. If you get up to some high ground (e.g. inside the Fort), you get such a good view of the city, and the colour really stands out. The major cities in Rajasthan all have a different colour-scheme/theme, so we knew there would be a fair amount of blue around, but we had no idea it would be so vivid. Apparently the colour blue also helps ward of mosquitoes, who are apparently rather picky about the colour of buildings they infest. Not sure how much truth there is to that. There's a saying in this country that people reel off alot: "In India, anything is possible". So, you know, maybe it's true or something.

One thing that certainly didn't seem possible by this point in our trip was India winning the cricket world cup. Despite setting a new record with their 400+ score in their second game, they pretty much needed a win in their third to go through to the next stage. With cricket being one of those game that just...goes...on...and...on...we weren't able to stay up all night to watch the game (although, being honest, even if it was on during daytime hours, the chances of us watching an entire game of cricket without falling asleep are pretty slim). And so, we awoke the next morning uncertain of India's fate. Were they going through, or had they been knocked out?

I hadn't had any washing done since Mumbai, so i was down to just one shirt that didn't smell: my India cricket shirt. On it went, and out we ventured into the streets of Jodhpur, with me potentially celebrating an Indian victory, or rubbing their noses in a defeat... We headed to the small museum and garden area, where a group of young lads were playing cricket...as soon as they caught site of me in the India shirt, they sprinted over and absolutely insisted i join their game, even if it was only for one shot. And so, Agent Johnsow stepped up to the wicket and played one damn fine stroke, hitting a rather sweet boundary - ohhh yeah! The kids couldn't speak English, so we couldn't find out the result, doh.

Moving on, we headed to the Maharaja's Palace, which contains a five star hotel as well as yet another museum (groan). It is a seriously impressive building, one which i believe was designed by a British bloke at the request of the Maharaja Singh, or, to give him his full title, Lieutenant General Air Vice Marshal His Highness Maharaja Umaid Singh(!). We attempted to enter the bar inside the hotel, only to effectively be turned away. They said we'd have to pay 1,500 rupees to enter (about eighteen quid), which was non-redeemable against drinks. I suspect this was a total invention of the doorman in an attempt to stop two white guys clad in shorts, t-shirts and sandles from entering a bar full of millionaire-Bollywood-star types. We were tempted to pay the fee in the name of keeping face, but decided to sacrifice our dignity in order to save money, and left.

As i mentioned before, the Mehrangarh Fort is incredible. We spent a good five hours exploring it, walking along the ramparts, seeing the stunning views over the town. The Fort walls are littered with canons, ready to defend the Fort from attack. The entrance fee includes an audio tour (which was really good - well worth walking around with the not-so-stylish headphones on for), on which we are told that the Fort has never been conquered in all its 549-year history. One reason for this is that the entrance gates are positioned on the corners of the grounds, meaning attacking forces were unable to use elephants to batter them down - the elephants had no runway to gather enough speed to smash through. Plus the doors have whopping great spikes on them, which is bound to deter the average elephant :O) Having said that, we are told that the war-elephants were trained to lift up an enemy soldier together with his horse in one swift movement, as well as having swords attached to their tusks...

The story of the Fort is pretty cool: apparently, the hill was home to a hermit known as the Lord of the Birds. He was forced to leave the hill so the Fort could be built. Not happy with this, he cursed the city, saying it would forevermore have a shortage of water. When building the Fort, Rao Jodha (the guy building it), tried to appease the Gods not just by building a temple inside, but having a man buried alive inside as well (the reward for this noble volunteer was that his family would always be well looked after and respected.) Inside these gates are the palm prints of the many wives of Maharaja Man Singh, who, when he died, did what The Books describe as "the honourable thing", in climbing onto his funeral pyre to immolate themselves - a Hindu act known as 'Sati'. Lovely stuff.

The Fort inside the museum is really good, with lots of weaponry cabinets, palanquins and elephant howdahs. There's a guy sat outside with a hookah, smoking some kind of...substance. The audio tour described how people would use these to smoke opium, and then actually suggests that you ask the guy if you can try some! I was somewhat sceptical about whether or not it was actually opium, but figured it would be better not to find out for sure - not least because it was clear we'd have to pay a hefty baksheesh for the privilege!

Arriving back in the town centre, we went to buy some supplies and stumbled across a group of schoolkids, one of which informed me that "India is out of World Cup, man". Doh! As it turned out, they weren't mathematically out of the competition, but they needed a miracle in terms of other results going there way. But hey, in India, anything is possible, right...?

A quick word or two about Rajasthan itself. As a state, it's mostly desert-land. As such, the landscape lacks colour. This is more than made up for by the extravagantly coloured clothes on display everywhere you look. Huge groups of women walk down the streets, each and every one of them wearing totally different colours, as if they've pre-planned their outfits before leaving home to ensure they don't wear the same as someone else. And the colours are so...bright. They look totally normal here, but at home, such bright colours would definitely raise a few eyebrows!

And then there's the camels - they're everywhere! Forget using horses to pull carriages, it's camels all the way here...and some of them are massive! Bigger than horses...in fact some of the biggest ones look more like giraffes...i had no idea they could grow so big. There seems to be lots of donkeys here as well, carrying huge bags full of rocks through the town/bazaar.

I'd say Jodhpur is the best 'Indian' city we've been to, by which i mean it's not Westernised at all (apart from the way all the restaurants serve a hefty quantity of cheese toasties every day). Very nice, with some fantastic sites...definitely worth visiting if you're in India/Rajasthan.

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