Jodhpur Day 2
Trip Start
Nov 27, 2010
1
8
16
Trip End
Dec 18, 2010
Where I stayed
Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
Monday, December 6, 2010
After breakfast we wandered out and grabbed an auto to take us up to Jaswant Thada, a beautiful marble cenotaph which it close to the main Meherangarh Fort in Jodhpur which is located on the top of the big hill overlooking the city.
We then wandered up to the fort and spent a couple of hours inside looking round and admiring the fantastic views of the 'Blue City' down below.
Afterwards we left via the rear gate and non-tourist route out and walked down the through the narrow streets of the old city, where every shop could have featured in some sort of coffee table book. They clearly weren't used to many tourists in the old city as unlike Jaipur, we didn't get hassled at all and in fact had kids waving at us and asking us to take photos of them as we got further into the place.
I managed to underestimate the distance we had to walk yet again and once we were pretty tired I realised we'd actually walked too far so we jumped in an auto to get us back into the centre of town but even there we weren't hassled at all, which was a real refreshing change from Jaipur which had been pretty hard work at times.
We were looking for a hotel we'd seen on the web before arriving in India as it had a rootop terrace with great views of the fort which towers above the city. We couldn't find our bearings but settled on another place that advertised a rootop terrace and being featured in the Lonely Planet but in the end end it had half a view, lots of flies and the kid who served us had to go running down the road to a shop to buy the beer to sell us! Despite us asking for the normal variety, he actually bought us the 8% strength version but we managed to finish it OK nonetheless!
We made light work of the beer and left before bumping into Pete and Gail in the street, Peter delighted that he'd picked up another jacket after a bartering session! They pointed us in the direction of the hotel we'd looking for. This time it was a lovely rooftop terrace with a far better view and we enjoyed a nice cool Kingfisher and watched the sun go down just to the side of the fort.
The hotel did look nice and was a fair bit cheaper than ours but we were pleased with our choice of the old colonial Ratan Villas and hopped in an auto back there where we enjoyed another nice dinner and chatted with Peter and Gail again, before 'retiring' for the evening, old boy!
