Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India by Mel

Hello from the blue city,
We are in Jodhpur. For some reason, I thought that starting in the south of India and then coming back up toward the north, we will get to the cooler season in April…. Boy was I wrong!!! I should have done my research a bit better! It is around 44 degrees here in the afternoon!!!
Anyhow! Monday the 7th of April, we woke up early, finished packing our bags and took a 20 minute-walk in the near empty streets of Udaipur once last time, to reach where the bus I booked was supposed to pick us up. We find the place easily, but it was still closed. No worries as we were a bit early: it was only 7.45am when the bus is supposed to leave around 8.30am. A little bit a wait, and a guy come and open the small bus outlet place and let us know that our bus has been cancelled! Apparently, they tried to contact me but didn’t have any information. I got my ticket by email, so surely, they could have sent me an email!
Go to the bus station across that big roundabout, there are more bus going to Jodhpur. Yeah because I love dealing with crowed bus station, language barrier and people asking for money. I left Kev and the kids with all the bags, dodged cars and bikes to get to the bus station (I am getting good at that), find the bus station and the right counter to get my tickets and buy us some new one. The only thing is the bus I booked was AC, comfortable seat. This new one is the regular cheap bus that regular Indian people use. Live like a local to really appreciate they say. We’ll manage. Get back to Kev and the kids: quick the bus is leaving in 10 minutes. Back to the bus station, jump in the bus, wrestle our massive bags in the overheard thing that is too small for our bags, but they end up fitting in with a bit of pushing. We seat down and it is not too bad. The bus left and I’m thinking to myself, it is not too bad. We stop 3 minutes away from the bus station to a first lot of more people coming in, then another lot 5 minutes later, and so on… Yep that is going to be crowded! I was lucky in the way that I was sitting against the window and Kev was on the aisle, he was the one with all the people pressing against him (we switch after several hours). Once thing I was proud of myself was that I finally bought my first food from a bus window: let me explain: when the bus stop at stations, some people are here to sell you water and food though the bus window: so far, we were always a bit shy about it, but this time, we needed water and food, so I bought some yummy snacks and some water bottle at several stops during the trip. I know it doesn’t sound extraordinary, but it was a little win for me and it is good to celebrate the little wins! 7 hours in a crowded bus with hot air blowing through the windows, sun on the side burning, it was fun… NOT! But as I said to the kids, we were lucky to have seats, some people were standing for 2, 3 of 4 hours of the trip. And this is how a lot of people travel here in India. I am kinda glad we did it, to show the kids that we are very fortunate to be able to afford more comfortable way of traveling. But yeah, once was enough. Talking about the kids, they were amazing. They did not complain, or whinge: they read their books, played together, looked out the window, even when people were squeezing themselves in front of them to let other people pass in the aisle. They were amazing. We finally arrived in jodhpur and got a tuktuk to our hostel and jumped in a shower! A little bit of rest and we were back out in the evening to find some food.
The place we are staying in the old part of the town which is made on tiny little streets, full of people, bikes, tuktuks going too fast. We saw a small parade of people dressed very colourful and playing some really loud drums, with a cart pulled by a camel!! This was some religious celebration. We follow that for a little bit, but we were all very tired and we got overwhelmed a little bit! We could not find a restaurant with seating area, only small food stall with take away food (which was not what we needed as we only nibbled through the day). We came back to the hotel as they said they could cook for us on the rooftop. And it was great!!! The rooftop has an amazing view from the fort, we rested there while our food was being prepared and then enjoy the delicious food while listening to all the city’s sounds: horns and bikes, but also music, drums and bells from temples. Then it was a welcomed bedtime!
Tuesday, we went to visit the Mehrangarh Fort. This is way bigger than the one in Udaipur. This fort was built in the second half of the 15th century, but a lot was added by the following maharajas through the centuries. The fort stands on a hilltop, rising about 122 m above the surrounding plains (hence why we can see it so well from our rooftop!). Inside it has several courtyards and magnificent carvings, exhibition of elephant’s howdah (seat that is put on the back on the elephant to carry around people), palanquin, weaponry, painting and more. The rooms are in the Rajasthan style, with mirror, stained glass and beautiful decorations. Also from the fort you can see the city. The last city we were in, Udaipur, is known as the white city and also the city of lakes. Jodhpur is known as the blue city, as a lot of the houses are painted in blue, as it makes them cooler as well as acts as insect repellent. It took us a few hours to visit the whole fort and we were pretty hungry by then, so we had lunch at the fort. One of the dishes we enjoy here, is called thali (when I say we, it is me and Andrew): it is a traditional meal in India. Each state, does it a little bit different, but the concept is the same. It is served on a big plate (the thali). On the plate are several little bowls with different food in here (lentils, vegetable, pickle, yogurt) in the middle there is usually rice and some type of bread, and it has sometimes a sweet dish as well. Those are delicious!!! After lunch, we went to walk in the old city to find the clock tower which is in the middle of a big place with market stall all around and is obviously a very busy place. It was super hot and we were pretty tired, so we went back to the hotel. The kids played on their computer and Kev and I tried to organize what to do for Andrew’s birthday which is next week! Double digit, 10 years old! I’m not sure I am quite ready. We ate on the rooftop again as it is such a good place! Then we watched a movie on the computer and bedtime!
Wednesday was a bit of a messy day. We went to see some stepwell, called Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi. It was built in the 1740s, by the wife of the Maharaja of the time. It was customary for the queens of Jodhpur to built water features for their people. The women were coming there to fetch water and socialised. With time, the stepwell fell in ruin and was submerges for a while. It is only recently that it was restored. You can see a 7 storey symmetrical steps and water at the bottom. The well is nowadays a place where young men have fun and jump for the highest point they can find. The well is around 90 meters deep, so they can jump with no worries! After that we wonder with no real aim in the old town. Kev found a science centre, so we took a tuktuk and got there around 12.30pm. Right in front of our eyes, they closed the gate. We are open at 4pm again! Yeah!!! We are not waiting for 3 and a half hour in that heat. We went to a shopping centre, which end up having only 3 out of 7 storey open, but luckily for the kids, one of those level had arcade games! We spent a couple of hours there, then call it a day and went back to the hotel.
In the evening we braved again the crazy tiny streets of the old city of Jodhpur to find a restaurant. The streets at the beginning of the evening are insane! People, bikes and tuktuks all trying to go first and pushing past everything and anything to do their shopping in one of the many little shops, or simply trying to go back home. It is difficult to describe. We got almost run over a few times: you need to have eyes behind as well as on both side of your head to see everything! We made it to a restaurant for our dinner, played a few games here waiting for our food. At the beginning of our trip in India, we thought the service was pretty slow, but now we understand: they make everything from scratch, so it took a bit longer obviously!
Thursday we booked a walking tour of the blue city. We have been walking around by ourselves, but we thought it would be interesting to have some facts and stories about the city. We learnt a few things: the main reason Jodhpur is the blue city is that when the fort was being built, the highest cast, the Brahmins (priests) started building their houses near the fort, but they wanted everyone to know what their cast was. They decided to colour their house blue (as they worshipped Vishnu, who is represented as a blue god), and it is cooler and insect repellent. The guide took us to some places, we probably wouldn’t have found by ourselves and took us food tasting and everything was delicious. A good morning we had! After that, a small lunch (we were still a bit full for the nibling of the morning) and back to the hotel for a rest. We did nothing much in the afternoon: kids played on their computer, I did some work on mine, we played board game and had dinner on the rooftop. It is nice sometime to do not much!
Next day, we went to the Mandore Garden. The rulers of the Mewar kingdom use to live a few kilometres away from Jodhpur (which didn’t exist at the time) in a city called Mandore. There you can see the remains of a fort built during the 4th or 6th century (We are not sure!). There are also temples built in the following centuries until the rulers decided that this location wasn’t secured enough and decided to move to the now Jodhpur whit the fort on top of the biggest hill around here.
The park was nice. A fair few monuments to see, there was a playground for the kids. There is also a very active temple, which had a festival on when we were there, with a lot of people, music, a fire, some music… It feels like there is always something going on in India. We spend the morning there, walking around. We took what felt like 1000 pictures with people. For some reason, we said yes to the first people who asked, and that started a chain of a lot of other selfies!!! After that we went to a rooftop restaurant for lunch and we saw another parade in the street with loud music, people dancing, a couple of carriages: ‘what is this?’ we asked our waiter: people getting married! They know how to party in India!!!
The afternoon was schoolwork, as we haven’t done much lately.
Saturday, our last day in Jodhpur, Andrew got an early birthday present: Zipline!!! We wanted him to do it on his birthday, but we couldn’t find one in Jaipur (where we will be on his actual birthday) I decided to do it with him this time. I am scared of height and when we did the first zipline in Laos and Emma decided it was too much for her, I was a bit relieved to not have to do it. Part of me, was a bit disappointed too. This time I wanted to share something that Andrew really loves doing. I’m so glad I did: It was actually not that scary and a great feeling to “fly” above those beautiful landscapes. Thank you Andrew for pushing my limits! I am also glad because when Emma saw me doing it, she said that she wanted to try to, but she was too short to do this one. We will have to find one that she can do before she changes her mind!
After that we decided to just walk in the streets of Jodhpur to get one last feel of it. The streets here are pretty narrow with shops everywhere; there are of course no big shopping centres, just a lot of small shops, each specialises in a few products: bangles, locks, sweets (we got some on our walk: delicious!), perfume, fabrics… and so much more. As Jodhpur has not a lot of water, the industries are not related to agriculture, but craft and you can see it in the shops around here. I am conflicted on my feelings about the streets of Jodhpur: one part of me is very overwhelmed by the noise, the crazy drivers that you need to avoid every 5 seconds, the rubbish and dirty streets; but part of me love the atmosphere; it is so lively, full of colours, smells (good and bad), there are small temples everywhere and you often see someone stopping for a few second for a quick prayer. I loved just observing all those lives around me and feel like I could do that forever!
After that, we went back to the hotel to eat our sweets and rest a bit. We did some blogging and pack as we are leaving tomorrow early for our next destination in India: Jaipur. See you there!
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