Jodhpur

Leaving the “Golden Triangle” was quite a relief. In Delhi and Agra in particular we were constantly hassled everywhere we went. Jaipur was slightly less intense. Jodhpur was much better. If we told a salesperson in Jodhpur we don’t want anything they don’t follow us for a full two blocks telling us to buy it. Not to say we were totally left alone, but it was more peaceful.

Our hotel was in a historic building with beautiful architectural details. It was near the clocktower, down an old road that wasn’t accessible by car. Instead we had to get a tuk tuk from the main road. It was also our first hotel in India with a real shower in the bathroom. Most places just have a showerhead on the wall in the middle of the bathroom. They all run out of hot water on occasions, some only have hot water for an hour or two in the morning. From the hotel’s rooftop restaurant we had a view of the whole city. 

The city itself is small but really beautiful with lots of historic architecture. It is called the blue city because a lot of houses are painted blue. Our driver told us only the Brahmin caste (the highest caste that all the priests belong to) painted their houses blue. It is the sort of place where it is fun to just sort of wander along the busy narrow streets and get lost. At that point we’d seen so many historic sights that they all blurred together so we didn’t bother with a ton of sightseeing. We walked to the clock tower because it was near our hotel. Our driver took us to the Mehrangarh Fort in the afternoon but it is such a small city we would have been better off just taking a tuk tuk rather than walking to the main street to meet him. We tried to go to Jaswant Thada temple but got there too late in the day so we only got to see it from the outside.

He did take us to try this milkshake like drink (I think it was called mawa ladoo) that was really yummy.  Since I eat Indian food a lot it was one of the few new foods I tried during my time in India.

In the evening we met my co-workers Kristina and Nicola who were also traveling around India for Chinese New Year. It was fun getting a chance to chat with them and compare notes on our trips. We went to another really nice rooftop restaurant called Indique.