Jodhpur: the blue city and the villages around

We arrived in Jodhpur late at night and had no idea that that our guest house had an excellent view from the rooftop. We only found out the next morning at breakfast.

It's not for nothing that people call it a "blue city" as almost everything around is indeed blue :-)

The Mehrangarh fort is Jodhpur’s main and pretty much only significant attraction, so we decided to start the day by going there. According to the owner, it was just 10 minutes away by walking up the steep heel and he was right.

Once at the ticket counter we were happy to find out that the fort has an elevator that will take you all the way to the top and the walk through the fort’s grounds is done nicely downhill.
The elevator ride, however, didn’t go quite as planned, and we managed to get out of it only after 3d attempt (the doors simply were not opening on the top and the elevator kept going down on its own).
From the top, the views are just breathtaking and you can really see that the whole city around is blue.

Inside there are several courtyards one after another, with different architecture of course, but after the number of forts we’ve seen already, they all started to look a bit alike.

I really liked the rooms and the decorations, and wanted to spent some more time there…

… but Dima got bored really quickly...

… and we started to walk back down.

It’s funny, but also here we saw a whole bunch of squirrels, it seems that in India they are just everywhere and very much enjoy posing for pictures.

Outside the fort there is a not a very old, but a very nice temple with a beautiful garden. It was very relaxing and we almost didn’t want to leave.

After the fort we had to decide what to do next. Our guide book mentioned visiting a bazar which was built around the English clock tower downtown and a trip to the nearby villages. We decided to do both.
About the villages we asked at the guest house earlier and the owner said that he will arrange something for us. The price he charged seemed reasonable at the time but we found out later that we could have done it twice as cheap. The villages were planned for the afternoon, so we still had time to see the Sardar Bazar.

 The donkeys blocked the traffic and it was funny to see how everybody was trying to bypass them J

When back at the guest house the car was already waiting for us. The plan was to drive about 80km through the villages around Jodhpur and to see some ceremonies and crafts.

The first stop was at the settlement that belongs to the Vishnu caste. Here we got to see the opium drinking ceremony. He made the whole show out of it…

 …and got so high that everybody just left him alone J

The wife took over showing us some of the house and her “kitchen equipment”.

On the way to the next village we saw some wild antelopes. The driver said that the one on the photo is a male, because females are colored differently.

Once at the village, it was interesting to see what everybody was doing. The women were busy with each other or with the house…

… the children were doing whatever they felt like doing…

… and the men were showing of  their skills, that they were taught depending on the caste they were born in.

On the way back we were a bit worried that it was getting dark. Indians are crazy drivers during the day, so we had no desire to experience their driving at night, but luckily we were back at the guest house just before dark.

For the next morning we needed to arrange a car to Udaipur with stops at Ranakpur and Kumbhalgarh. The hotel owner wanted to do it for us as well, but since we already found out that he charged us way too high for the village thing, we refused and went to the owner of the internet café nearby. It took almost an hour to get the price dropped from 3.8K to 2.5K, but we did and were quite happy with the result.

Conclusion: very nice town, but other than visiting places we've been to, there is really not much to do. The village safari in a way is a good idea to fill in the rest of the day and can be quite nice depending on the places that will be visited.

Next: Indian countryside, Ranakpur and Kumbhalgarh