Jodhpur : the Blue City

Sometimes when I wake up my first thought is "Oh my God, I'm still in India" This is supposed to be a holiday but its really hard work - everyday you have to try and decide where and what you will eat and what risks you are going to take with it, what you are going to do for the day, how youre going to cope with the heat and the dust, and the people that hassle you all the time, the people who are going to try and rip you off, the language difficulties, and then start planning your next move, which place and by which means will you get there,counting your money, hiding it...all that. I probably should have stayed in Pushkar a bit longer - it was really quirky and fun there. But then once I get outside its fantastic and I love the life and the colour and the noise and the action, the people, the surprises almost at every turn.

 The Temple at the Fort

This guy made me fresh Sugar Cane juice..lovely

Jodphur is an horrendously crowded noisy and dusty city of over a million and I am staying in the Shahi Guest House in Old Jodphur right up under the shadow of the massive fortress, Mehangheer. The Guest House is an "Haveli" a converted old style home and you would really need to be a mountian goat to live in one. The rooms are quite large but piled on top of each other with almost verticle steps running up to the rooftop where people sleep and where in this case their rooftop restaurant is. All these places are squashed together in a maze of congested streets and alleyways, and a few main thoroughfares lined with tiny cramped shops, swimming in rubbish and dust, motorbikes and autorickshaws and masses of people. Its more crowded than Old Delhi because the streets are much narrower for one thing, and there are a couple of differences Ive noticed in particular - firstly there doesn't seem to be any beggars here, and secondly kids, and I thought surprisingly, girls as well,  are really friendly and they often approach me and ask me my name - so I tell them, ask them theirs and then I shake their hands and say "Nice to meet you Kamoosh" or whatever it is. But the wonderful cows are here aplenty, and donkeys and a camel train squeezed by this morning through the narrow lane near the Hotel. There are also dogs and heaps of pigeons. And muslims which were rare in Pushkar - so no crackly loudspeaker calls to prayer at sunrise...grrrr. 

The real problem with this Blog is I that am trying to convey something, an experience, which is just too overwhelming a lot of the time. Take the Fort I went to today - you've seen a picture up above that I took from the roof of the Haveli last night. But you cant feel the heat, you cant hear the racket or hear horns tooting or the call from the Mosque or a kid laughing down below, you don't have dust on your feet and you cant get a sense of the way that thing looms over  and above, an aura of  massiveness and impregnability. And then when you go there and walk up the avenue towards an enormous gate between the massive walls and look up at those lattice windows and balconies and ramparts way up with flocks of swallows swooping across in loops, its just indescribable. LP advised for once getting the Audio Guide and it was so worth it - the narrator an Indian with a deep gravelly voice spoke with a beautiful english accent, and there was a background of traditional sitar music making the whole experience quite dramatic. People you will just have to get here and see and experience it for yourselves - I am telling you, you wont be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointment, I took an autorickshaw to the Umaid Bhawan Palace after the Fort where I had been wandering all morning. From a distance this place looks impressive - and actually it is - but most of it has been converted into a very expensive Hotel - like $1000 per night for a cheaper suite. I watched  as a limo pulled up and a beautifully costumed doorman - Rajput style - sprang forth and opened the door to - a child! And the bags were carried in as the kid disappeared with attendant inside.

 Another significant chunk of the place is still the residence of the son of the Mhrajah who built the place only 70 years ago, so its quite new - and the bit we are allowed to pay 50 rupees to enter is essentially what I found to be a nauseating tribute to the many wonders of the Maharajah Umaid Singh a guy I thought in some portraits looked a bit like Dr Evil, but with a moustache, a Turban and a tan! He built this massive place of 365 rooms to help the poor people during a drought apparently - this fact is repeated breathlessly everywhere - but I wondered why they didn't explain how his massive collection of clocks, cars, art and aeroplanes helped them.