Jodhpur - The Blue City

After a relatively peaceful night (there are town-based monkeys which decided to howl and make loads of noise in the early hours), we were up nice and early looking to have a bit of a tour of Jodhpur.

This is by far and away the hottest we have been on the holiday so far. We were dining in the hotel last night and at 8:30pm the temperature was still 33 degrees. There was a whole lot of sweating going on, and to dispel a myth, eating a hot curry did not cool this blogger down, it just made me sweat in a different way!! However, it is slightly churlish of me to be complaining about the heat, especially as that is one of the reasons we came to India, but this is probably the hottest I have been since Luxor.

The roof terrace of our hotel, who would want to go anywhere else!

....and the view of the Fort from our room - heavenly!

 

OK, today we have had an early morning tour of Jodhpur, taking us to the impressive fort we can see out of our window (Mehrangarh Fort). Jodhpur is known as the blue city because in the old city particularly, large sections of the housing is all painted blue. Our guide was very good at explaining  why they people did this. There are two competing theories 1) It is to do with Brahmins (priest caste, which is the highest caste in Hinduism) wanting to differentiate themselves from other, lower castes and 2) The blue buildings have helped to keep away the bugs and flies. Whether there is scientific proof of this, I don't really know, but I can confirm that we have not been bitten half as much as we were when we were staying in Delhi! Although that might be down to the large number of bats that are flying around our hotel at night rather than the blue colour!!

Jodhpur - the blue city, as seen from the fort.

Anyway, we wound our way up to the fort, but before going there we visited a mausoleum for the maharajahs, which is on the way. This was called Jaswant Thada (which translates roughly as Jaswant's mausoleum), and it was built using the white marble akin to the mausoleums in Agra. Bearing in mind that sort of marble doesn't exist around the local area, it was being shipped from Jaipur it was a seriously logistical exercise to get enough marble here to build this mausoleum, so we were impressed - as well as with the detailing! There were a couple of men in full dress dotted about the place, who when seeing a tourist began playing music (in the expectation of getting a few rupees). I do love this sort of thing so was very happy to part with some lower denominational notes for taking their pictures (after asking first of course!).

Jaswant Thada, very intricate and fit for a king (which was handy!)

Man blowing his own trum-erm-flute

Wonderful sounds of India at Jaswant Thada

From the mausoleum we made a short trip further up the cliff to the fort, which we had seen on our first night from the hotel room. The guide explained that the fort stands over 400 metres above the city and gives an impressive and imposing view of the city! We made our way around the various rooms, enjoying our  guides narration, as he loved saying "the ladies" (or more precisely I loved the way he said it!), and we saw lovely silks, some beautifully ornate rooms where "the ladies" would entertain the maharajah, and a few elephant carriages (that is saddles for people, not a carriage for elephants!).

Mehrangarh Fort, as viewed from Jaswant Thada

Mehrangarh Fort, impressive!

Place where "the ladies" entertained the maharajah - no wives allowed apparently!

Tiny wedding carriage. The guide explained that brides always fit in it before marriage, but not after!!

Man showing me how big his turban was.....

The temperature walking around the palace was insanely hot this morning, and according to the man in the shop I was changing some currency at, it was over 43 degrees today and so this really sapped our energy. It meant that we didn't have the guided tour of the old city, but instead we just retired to the sanctuary of the pool, which was a welcome relief!

Later that afternoon, while Sarah was having an afternoon nap (I think she got a touch of heat exhaustion), I walked down to the old city to have a look at the market there. It was all very reminiscent of Marrakesh for me, but a lot less intensive with trying to sell you things. Indian people are friendly and respectful, if they see you lingering over their shop they will invite you in, but there is no real hard sell in the market. It was similar in other ways too, namely the narrow labyrinthine streets, which you could easily get lost in, if you didn't have a reference point. Thankfully I did (it was the old clock tower). I didn't buy anything from the market, partly because we didn't need any more mangoes or children's plastic cricket bats, but mainly because our baggage limit for the internal flights we are undertaking in a couple of days is already at breaking point!!

The clock tower, which is the central point of the market

Anyway, that is Jodhpur done, although I could have quite easily stayed at that hotel for a couple of days more. But time is pressing, and tomorrow we start making our way down to Udaipur, stopping off at another former hunting lodge at a village called Narlai on our way.