Night(mare) bus
A year ago while travelling in Vietnam I wrote all about SEA night buses, and I'm pretty sure I promised myself never to undertake another journey by sleeper bus in Asia. Well, I have a habit of breaking promises I make to myself...
In India, cancelling a train ticket costs only Rs40 (€0.60), so plenty of people book tickets several days in a row, and cancel at the last minute. This makes it handy for travellers who book train tickets only a day or two in advance - your ticket will initially be wait-listed but a few hours before the train leaves you're guaranteed a place. Or so the guidebook says! Unfortunately our wait-listed train ticket between Bikaner and Jodphur didn't benefit from a cancellation, so we had to book a last minute sleeper bus to be on our way!
Well, when we stepped up into the bus I was pining for Vietnam's short-bunked buses. The Indian equivalent of a sleeper bus has glass panelled sleeping compartments and no air-conditioning. The compartments look just like a giant vivarium for humans, right down to the (broken) lightbulb and hard sleeping surface. Aaron and I were under the impression that we would have one cubicle each, but it turns out that the wider cubicles are actually made for two persons. The result: two adults, two backpacks, and two day bags squeezed into a glass cubicle as wide as a small single bed, with a window about 60cmx45cm for air. Not the best night's sleep I have had in a long time, but at least the driver wasn't listening to Hindi-pop at full volume all through the night.
Jodphur, the Blue City
Our night bus rattled us 300km all the way from Bikaner to Jodphur, so at around 5am we were to be found in a rickety Rickshaw put-putting our way to Discovery Guest House, a place we booked into on the recommendation of some Spanish backpackers we met in Bikaner. Our first order of business in the guest house was to arrange for a doctor's visit - Aaron was having trouble breathing and hadn't slept a wink all night. It took the doctor all of six hours to make his way to the guest house, by which time we had breakfasted, napped, and showered.
The doctor told Aaron he had a swollen oesophagus, gave him a couple of injections and about 600 different pills to be taken three times a day, and bade him stay away from beers, cola and spicy food for three days. With Aaron partially mended we could explore our surroundings, and our first port of call was the guest house terrace for a look at the city.
On the way up we couldn't help noticing the nicely decorated interior - all the surfaces featured paintings of Rajasthani scenes - camels, harems, palms and oases, and the odd maharaja here and there. Up the three floors, through the kitchen (very clean) and onto the roof, for a breathtaking view of Mehrangarh, Jodphur's hilltop fortress. This seemingly impregnable fort stands at the top of a steep hill, around which sprawls downtown Jodphur. The city is famous for its Brahmin blue houses - painted so because a) Blue is the colour of Brahma, the favoured Hindu deity of most of the locals, and b) this particular shade of blue apparently doesn't absorb so much of the sun's heat! Whatever, it makes for a beautiful scene!
The Blue city, with its busy narrow lanes, open sewers and minarets was another strong reminder of our proximity to Pakistan. The city streets are lined with merchants - it seemed to me that at least every other opening was carrying out a commercial activity of some sort or other, and just a couple of streets away from our guesthouse we found the throbbing heart of downtown Jodhpur - the market that radiates around the clocktower (not open for visitors :/ ).
Mehranghar, the impregnable fortress
Impregnable, or so it would seem, to a tired westerner approaching in a Piaggio Ape rickshaw from the narrow lanes of Jodphur, wondering whether or not the Vespa's big, three-wheeled brother can make it up the hill without hitting any cows, dogs, people, and random rocks adorning the road. But as it turns out, this mighty 15th century fortress changed ownership a few times over its long history. Most of the fort that stands today was built in the 17th century. Entry to the fort includes a very detailed audio guide that outlines much of the history and many interesting facts about the fort, and handily Wikipedia explains many of these, saving me plenty of typing!
I can't help but mention that the fort housed many more intricate purda screens, each one carved with an original design. There are even secret chambers in the hall of private audiences, where the leader's women could listen in on the proceedings and whisper subtle hints to their men!
After a good hour of informative rambling in the fort, courtesy of the audio tour, we were shepherded through the obligatory gift museum (very expensive!), and allowed to wander on the bastions to our heart's content. The views from Mehranghar are amazing, I don't blame the Rathore princes for putting their fort here... the view stretches for kilometers and kilometers, unobstructed by hills and trees (we were, after all, on the fringes of the Great Thar desert).
After we'd had our fill of fortifications we rolled downhill in a rickshaw and into the market, where we carried out a short recce of the neighbourhood, where we were promptly harassed by people selling everything from camera memory cards to silk scarves, from fruits to illegal drugs and prescription medication!
Needless to say we beat a hasty retreat to the rooftop restaurant at our guest house, where we enjoyed the cool breeze and a sky dotted with kites, both the feathered and the plastic variety. With the setting sun came a very slow meal ("Our food is made from the heart, and is all cooked fresh, that is why you have to wait almost an hour for your curry and chapati") and a few beers in the company of some fellow travellers from France, Argentina, Brazil, Korea and Japan. We were all set for a late night with beers, however at 11pm sharp the lights were turned off and we were asked to either sit quietly in the dark or go to bed. It seems that in Jodhpur establishments need to be shut by 11pm. We had no choice but to turn in for an early night, and arranged to take a rickshaw to the Maharaja's Palace at the other end of town the next morning with the French travellers, David and Celine.
Maharaja Opulence
In the 1930s Maharaja Umaid Singh decided to start a philanthropic, job creating project that would last 15 years and create over 3000 jobs: he would build himself a palace, but not because he needed a palace or anything, just so that he could give jobs to 3000 workers in a time of severe drought. How very thoughtful of Mr Singh!
One of the Maharaja's descendants still lives in part of the palace, however most of it has been turned into a very luxurious (and exclusive) hotel, and an area has been turned into a museum. The museum is the only area open to the public (unless you are willing to splurge for a meal at one of the hotel restaurants), where there's a series of photos documenting the interior of the palace, some design elements, as well as the various stages of construction. As one would expect, most of the museum is dedicated to the Maharaja Umaid Singh and his hobbies: polo, fine dining and a lavish lifestyle meeting foreign dignitaries.
Our appreciation of the various exhibits was somewhat hampered by the fact that there was no power at all during our visit, so we could only observe the photos by mobile phone light!
Back in town, we were dropped off at the clock tower, in the heart of the market. We were about to embark on our first serious shopping expedition in India! The market was pretty crowded, however the hawkers weren't as annoying or as persistent as we expected (or as we would later encounter in our travels). A firm "No, thank you" was enough to get the Jodphuri hawkers off our backs, and we eventually found a clothing / scarf / pouf outlet that we liked, so we settled in for some free Thums Up cola and a display of nearly all the wares in the shop. Deepak, the owner, treated us to a nice lecture about the lengths that wholesalers like the one we visited in Bikaner go to to fleece unsuspecting travellers out of their money. It is not true that pashmina scarves are made using just the goatee of a mountain goat - the whole chin and chest area are used, and that's why pashmina scarves can be had for about one fifth the price we were quoted in Bikaner!
With reasonable prices and a nice choice of goods, we were happy to part with a wad of our rupees in exchange for Ali Baba pants, pashmina scarves, wall hangings and cushions.
Laden with shopping, we headed back to our guest house for a rest before taking our night train to Jaipur, the state capital of Rajasthan.
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