Jodhpur

We took a 5 hour bus to Jodhpur from Jaisalmer. After the mega long rides in the south anything under 10 hours seems like a short journey. The bus was a funny combo of half seats and half beds. The bus made some random stops which also saw a family get on with a 3-4 year old child who wasn't wearing any bottoms. Not sure what was going on there but they didn't stay on the bus long.

Jodhpur is the Blue City due to a lot of the houses being painted indigo blue.
We settled into our cleanest and loveliest homestay yet, which was also the quietest and most peaceful, which afforded us the most hours of uninterrupted sleep so far on the trip.

On our first full day we went up to the city fort/palace which looms over the whole city. The palace was in use until roughly the Indian independence but the existing Maharaja's family have turned it into a museum. It was pretty good and we explored every room we could, seeing some impressive stuff.

We then wandered down the old Indigo city and watched the 100+ eagles get fed on high on the Fort from a lovely rooftop cafe. (Something that happens everyday at the same time)

Our second day we took a heritage walking tour of the Blue city which gave us more insight into why the city was blue and which took us to all the best sites. We ended by being taken to a old spice shop where the clark sat down with us and showed all ALL of his spices, from teas to cooking spices, and explaining what each of them did and how to prepare them. We only wanted a little bag of masala chai mix.

We then rested in another rooftop cafe to whittle away the time drinking chai and reading. We've come to accept two things, not doing anything is lovely and we shall be doing it as much as we please and not feel guilty. And we need to eat half our two meals a day as western food in order to then eat Indian food for the other half, to save our stomachs and taste buds. The rich spices and heavy food can get to us a bit sometimes.

We spent that evening at a lovely rooftop restaurant where we indulged in some delicious Indian food and a beer and then had an early night to catch a train to Jaipur, the pink city.Read more