Jodhpur: the Blue City

We arrived in jodhpur and went straight to our hotel, which had a pool. Pools are lovely places to pre-bathe after sleeping outside in desert-like conditions. This hotel was another haveli: a hotel that used to be a palace/mansion for prominent Indian families around 300 years ago.

Before exploring jodhpur by foot we hit up the Omelette man. This man, as the story goes, whips trough 1000 eggs a day from his simple stand. We each had an masala (a mixture of spices used in Indian cuisine) omelette (25 rupees, 45 cents CDN) and a soda and then we got bottles of water all for 420 rupees: the equivalent of just over seven Canadian dollars. The omelette was delicious! The environment was even better. First, we sat down on tiny stools by his stand, pretty much in the street. Then we took a gander at the menus on our laps. We had some company: two fine, young English chaps who told stories of their 6 weeks of Indian travels. We literally sat in the street as the smells of passing cows and cars filled the air, as the noise of horns and conversation competed for sound space, as we felt the heat and dust, as people and things continually moved around us and as big four-wheeled flat vendor carts passed. One such cart was being pushed by an able gentleman, but he wasn't pushing wares, he was pushing a teenage boy whose leg bent in such a way that his foot went towards his face. Write this dinner down in life's book of experiences.

I can't post our own pics but check it out:
http://www.livingif.com/the-power-to-change-the-world/

While in jodhpur we investigated the local fort that was started in 1459. We were there for a couple of hours as there was much to explore and learn. Again, I was more than fascinated with how this fort was created in that time period. Looking at the engineering was astonishing: how do you look at a mountain and create a massive, lmulti-storeyed building with a ginormous surrounding wall? There were cool things such as: cannonball marks from a battle with Jaipur, a gate with monstrous doors at a ninety degree angle to the path to avoid attacking army elephants from gaining speed, large spikes on these doors to prevent elephants from ramming the doors with their heads, intricate marble and sandstone designs, incredible palace rooms with intelligent heating and cooling systems, a private women's area/court as women were kept separate from men, stories describing art about Vishnu, Krishnan, Durga (important characters to Hindu), weapons (with descriptions as to why this empire switched from blades to guns), displays in baby cradles and the things royalty was carried in/sat in on elephants (just like in "the movies") and, above all else, an indescribably view of the blue city and surrounding landscape.

As we were walking to the fort we passed a construction site. Some folks were repairing the road on a hill. Construction in other countries is always extra fascinating to  me. Here there were folks at the top if the hill smoothing out the poured concrete. Below them were people pouring new concrete by hand. Mules had doubles woven sacks laid across their backs (DR folks: like the mules that carry our stuff up Duarte) and were hauling the concrete up the hill. A lady in a full sari was filling up the mules' loads of concrete. At the bottom people were hauling sand and gravel in what looked like metal church offering plates and placing it into an automatic mixer. Mules, offering plates and a sari-Ed lady, this is my Indian construction experience.

There are some pics on facebook:
https://m.facebook.com/#!/rachael.weening?__user=500893022