The blue city+a huge fort
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
48
69
Trip End
Apr 12, 2005
Jodpur, India
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
After the bus ride from Pushkar, I shared a rickshaw into the city with Georgia, a kindred long-term solo traveller from Oz/Portugal/Italy and we opted to be touristy and climb the hill to explore the fort and the palace within.
It's a massive, sprawling construction dating back to the 15th century, with a snazzy audio guide program--compulsory, apparently, and none too cheap. I wish the Indian government would cut us a break and not charge so much for entry fees (like with the Taj Mahal--750Rs (about $17)for foreigners and only 20 Rs (just over $1) for Indians). But it was quite an interesting wander through the various palace buildings, seeing some old artifacts like some fancy-schmancy elephant howdahs (riding seats for the royals), and old opium pipe smoking setup, Akbar's sword and and especially the view over the city, which was nothing short of magnificent.
There was a film being shot while we were up there, and I found out later that Peter O'Toole is starring in it. Would have loved to have met him, but had to settle for seeing the crew set up lights. Ho hum.
Another wonderful aspect of Jodpur was in the culinary department--fabulous, simple omelettes served up by a very sweet young man called Vicky (!) (who says he goes through thousands of eggs every day), and the most delicious lassi I've ever had; a fantastic, refreshing, lemony-saffron-cardamom-yogurt drink, served up by a juice bar just near the clock tower. Don't miss these important sights if you're ever in Jodpur!
And after discovering that we both take the same kind of (what most people consider to be) strange pictures of windows, stairways, cracks in walls, weird and wonderful shadows, old shredded posters on splintered wooden doors and of course our feet (!), Georgia and I decided it was desert camel trekking time, so we hopped another bus further west to Jaisalmer.
