Day 13-15: Jodhpur
"Holy bat, man"
Another day, another fort (and another chemist as it happens as we struggle a little to shake our Delhi coughs).
But this one is a whopper. Red rocked Mehrangarh fort towers over the city and you can see why so many location scouts have it in their little black books. (I’ll leave it to Jack to talk about Batman. But I will talk about about the actual bats at some point).
Rajasthan's second largest city didn’t feel half as sprawling as Jaipur with its Venice reminiscent narrow lanes and the best street of bazaars and box of delight-like shops yet.
We’re still on the edge of the desert but this place is far more colourful than its J town predecessors - truly Brahmin blue. (Note, this is less to do with any reverential bow to Brahmin and more to do with a decorator's solution to a termite problem intent on attacking the city’s brickwork). A happy coincidence nevertheless.
Our early morning train got us in around 9 just in time for an unashamedly western breakfast of peanut butter on toast in the beautiful cushioned balcony of our Haveli.
As I unpacked, Jack went to investigate a suitable smoking location which led to a phone call five minutes later imploring me to stop whatever I was doing (washing knickers) and ‘come upstairs’. Upstairs was actually five flights of various levels of precariousness ... but the view from the top was worth the lactic acid. Blue and white cubes as far as my eyes could see on one side and the imposing fort looking down on us from the other. And overhead... circling birds enjoying the thermals. It’s worth also declaring at this stage of proceedings that Jack and I have become unexpected and howllingly amateur twitchers... Entirely owing to the fact that rather than pigeons (although they do have exotic looking green pigeons) India’s skies are full of well, where do I start - eagles, kingfishers, many varieties of magpies, mynas and the 'laughing' thrush.
Post composing ourselves after our rooftop surprise we venture into old Jodhpur. The city is surrounded by a huge wall with 101 bastions and seven gates / pols inscribed with the names of the places to which each of the roads beneath leads. You’d think that kind of ingenuity would make it easier to navigate but our search for the ‘Batman jail location’ on foot soon makes us realise our mistake and we hail an auto-rickshaw to manage the remainder of the incline on our behalf.
While the fort itself is as gasp inducing as you’d imagine, many of which emitted by Jacko in Batman related relish, it was the discovery of the ‘secret’ lake tuck behind a tiny wooden door which really wins the day.
Our evening was spent on another rooftop, our watering eyes and the fogged up sky prompting us to Google to the news that Jodhpur is more polluted that Delhi... a recurring theme and one definite blot on India's copybook. But once dusk had been and gone and the dark night rises.... wait for it... our evening's entertainment is a sky full of bats! Indian flying foxes are not uncommon and are absolutely enormous, with their wingspan often reaching one and half metres. Holy bat man...
Day two was spent on foot, in spite of the fumes, revisiting Old town’s Main Street and the colourful terrace of box size shops which run its length. Including visits to the state’s best sweet shop, omelette purveyor and lassi merchant. Another first included me being bumped out of the way by one of the enormous cows that have free rein of the streets here. Gentle but firm. They know who’s Raj.
The evening's call to prayer - a five-times-day joy which floats through the air from the minarets of the mosques wherever we’ve been - was also a belter at sunset - with this muezzin sounding intriguingly like a mystical Tom Jones.
Jodhpur gave us one final gift in the form of Nirvana restaurant owner, Ravi, with whom we spend the rest of our night chewing the ghee.
Topics (most at his suggestion I should add) included arranged marriage - 99% of them still are in Rajasthan, gender inequality - he’s worried india's young men are lacking in more modern education in this respect and the chasm between the GDP and the GNP which is belying India’s actual grassroots progress.
A fantastic, big hearted man.
Now the jungle awaits! And probably a one in ten thousand chance of seeing a tiger.... we’ll be sure to let you know....
"Why do we fall?"
Rounding off our colourful tour of Rajasthan's 'J-towns', we disembarked from another overnight sleeper train before 8.00am in stunning Jodhpur. Straight up to the roof of our hotel, the sun rising behind us over the ninety bastions of the huge fort, high on steep ridge. The light streams down illuminating the town, lying in front and below us and we're taken aback. The Blue City is exactly that; blue. The Old Town in particular, where the sulphates used in construction have turned the buildings the same colour as the sky. It's remarkable to see.
Throughout our couple of days here we spent our time snapping photos every couple of minutes as each switchback through the labyrinth of narrow streets brings another delightful view. I doubt our pictures will do it justice but the effect in person really is striking.
The long, uphill journey to the fort is rewarding, doubly so for me as parts of The Dark Rises were filmed here, notably Bruce Wayne's metaphorically heavy-handed emergence from The Pit in the desert. "Why do we fall?", indeed.
Without much of a plan for Jodhpur, we were happy to meander around, never quite lost but not always with a clear sense of where we were. Leaving the Old Town, we pushed our way down the main market street, a wonderfully crowded mile of tiny shops crammed together, each dedicated to a speciality; spices, turbans, copper pots, umbrella repair, trumpet repair, incense, wedding accessories, slippers. Colours and smells assault the senses as throngs of locals go about the noisy business of commerce.
Enthused and emboldened by a couple of weeks here without gastric incident, we eat in the streets, starting with candies. Tooth-bendingly sweet, treacly galub jamun and milky, sweet-sour barfi. A handful of rupees for a sugar high so good, we sought out the same tiny concrete hole in the wall the next day. Then the famed makhanya lassis by the clocktower, a refreshing, lemony, custardy milkshake - delicious. Finally, Helen, braver than me (or hungrier) makes a bee-line for the best omelette in India, allegedly. Served in the middle of an unlovely street by a laughing grease-wallah, his tiny stove and single, crusty skillet hidden between precarious six-foot high towers of eggs, the omelette is presented between two slices of sweet fried bread and eaten sat on an upturned plastic crate between the ruminating cows and the autorickshaw stand. Helen confirms that it might not be the best egg sandwich in India, but the whole world. We mess up the change and tip about double the price of this simple meal. "Worth it," says she.
Goo goo g'joob
Two days later and I'm still consumed by food envy.
We report no ill effects and are committed to eating whatever looks and smells good from now on, regardless of the surroundings. It's a decision I'm sure will have consequences but there's joy in discovering new flavours and we're reluctant to miss out.
With contrasting towns, cities, country and desert behind us, next is a thrill for the Kipling fan: the jungle..
Jodhpur trains, swell chaps with ginger beards, intrigue, mystery and Victorian Freemasonry by Kipling:
““But about my friend here. I must give him a word o’ mouth to tell him what’s come to me or else he won’t know where to go. I would take it more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him at Marwar Junction (Jodhpur), and say to him:— ‘He has gone South for the week.’ He’ll know what that means. He’s a big man with a red beard, and a great swell he is. You’ll find him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him in a second-class compartment. But don’t you be afraid. Slip down the window, and say:— ‘He has gone South for the week,’ and he’ll tumble. It’s only cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you as a stranger — going to the West,” he said with emphasis.
“Where have you come from?” said I.
“From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping that you will give him the message on the Square — for the
sake of my Mother as well as your own.””
