Jodphur -Forts, Palaces & Food

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort from the Town

Mehrangarh Fort Main Gate

Mehrangarh Fort

View of the Blue Houses From Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort

Jodphur Panorama

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort Panorama

Mehrangarh Fort

Mehrangarh Fort

Continuing our journey southwest we arrived in Jodphur. Our driver Haroon hasn't quite got it yet as he keeps stopping at roadside restaurants that are totally geared (and priced) to western package tourists. You see, dear reader, he gets a commission from the restaurant for anyone he drags in that is prepared to dine at the exhorbitant prices charged at these joints.  Today he was disappointed for the third time - we stretched our legs had a coffee and that was it and 10% of sod all is sod all. Meanwhile he went off for a 60 rupee Thali meal in the staff canteen at the place. I've told him that we will eat where he does in future whilst enroute. As if to shew us that he had got the message on arrival in Jodphur he pointed out a cheap open air restaurant off the main street where he said we could eat very well for less than 100 rupees. He was right, but more on that later.

Jodphur is the second largest city in Rajestan with nearly 850,000 inhabitants and, yes, those odd horse-riding pants were designed here. There's an old walled city and a newer surrounding city but the entire city is dominated by the Mehrangarh Fort. This huge 15th century fort is perched upon and yet almost an integral part of a hill to the northwest of the city centre. It is vast and absolutely magnificent. Though there are many large forts in Rajestan and we couldn't possibly see them all during this trip I'd venture that this is the most imposing. In fabulous condition and with a proper trust overseeing its upkeep we spent nearly 7 hours wandering around there and imagining how it might have been all those hundreds of years ago. There is an audio guide for vistors (for a fee of R200/-) and I recommend anyone to take one as it was very informative and an easy listen. There were museums showing everything both practical, ornamental and decorative, from weapons to childrens cradles, but it is the structure itself that we found the most inspiring. As with so many things here the pictures don't do it justice I am afraid but take my word for it, and I don't use this word very often as it is so often used these days to describe mediocre and commonplace things, but this place is an awesome sight.

I learned something about loyalty, love and dedication here. When the fort was built in the late 15th century a hermit, who lived on the hill, was effectively evicted. He placed a curse on the fort and its occupants and, apparently, one of the maharajas entourage volunteered to be bricked up alive in the walls of the fort as a sacrifice to break the curse, which had coincided with a great famine. He's still there to this day at the front gate with a stone plaque to honour his dedication to his king. Further in, at one of the inner gates, there are hand prints of the ruler's wives  on the walls. When a ruler died the wife would leave the fort during the funeral rites marking her departure with her handprint on the wall. She would later place herself on the funeral pyre containing her dead husband and would there be consumed by the flames, by all accounts in silence.. These days we might perhaps find it difficult to understand such dramatic displays of loyalty, devotion or affection, but maybe there were aspects of behaviour and dignity in those early days that we might do well to reflect upon in these modern, turbulent, rather more selfish times.

Anyhow,  we decided to walk down from the fort through a settlement of houses all painted blue. We passed boys playing cricket in the street and I was mildy rebuked when I suggested to one of the lads that he was the new Tendulkar - he protested that he was in fact the new Yuvraj Singh. I couldn't help smiling, cricket is up there with all the other competing religions - and seems to have a greater following. We also came very close to being taken out by a camel pulling a dray.

The town had a scruffy central market place and clock tower.  There were however, spice shops and cookshops. We had some lovely cardamon and cinnamon tea, so bought a few packs of that. We stocked up on some spice mixes and saffron and I bought a nice stainless steel tiffin box. I had a lovely time really as I am often at my happiest when ferreting around a cookshop for something interesting. I almost bought some copper kadais (cookpots) but decided the baggage allowance would allow it.

In the market & main street we found out that the street food here in different.  Yes there are pakora stands and I did have some vegetable and chily pakoras that were fab and less than 20p. There's a famous (mentioned in Lonely Planet apparently) omelette stand just outside the square. I didn't have one but I was impressed that he must do a decent trade as he was surrounded by 6 foot high columns of eggs in two dozen egg trays. The real deal is Rajestani samosas. They are wonderful; huge and packed with a variety of quite spicy fillings. There are round ones and triangular ones all packed with flavour and wonderfully delicious. Also at only 8 rupees each (about 10p) they are great value and a meal in themselves..

At this point I should mention the open air restaurant that Haroon pointed us at. With melamine tables and no two chairs the same it didn't look too promising but there was a view to the street by the single set of traffic lights in the city so during our meal we had the added entertainment of the madness at the lights, as cars, bikes, rickshaws and bicycles jockeyed for position to get away first.  It was all stupid really as on each occasion all the traffic stopped at the lights got through the lights well before they changed. It seems these people just can't help it and turn crazy the moment they get on the road.

Back to the food. In the restaurant there was a thali special for 89 rupees, about £1.20. You could choose any three from 6 vegetarian curries, one from four rice dishes, one from three curd dishes, one from 3 deserts and one from three bread options. I make this over 300 possible combinations. I told the waiter what I'd selected, the drinks order and kathy's food order. He had no pad or pen and I wondered what we would end up with. It came 100% as ordered which I was pretty impressed with and was really terrific food at a sensible price. So much so we ate there again the following night and was just as good.

While sitting there watching the lunacy at the lights there was a commotion between a middle aged motorcyclist and a traffic policeman. What initiated the disturbance remains a mystery to me, but there were raised voices, waved and pointed fingers and a rather ungainly scuffle which resulted in the cop jumping on the motorcycle and riding off with the apparent owner in hot pursuit. I imagined the insurance report ( in the unlikely event that there was a policy) - "My machine was stolen by PC Venkatesh Singh in Jodphur High Street". Kathy was amused that the cop stuck out his bum to prevent the owner climbing on the pillion as he scooted off down the road.

The two other noteworthy places in Jodphur are the Umaid Bhavan Palace and the Jaswant Thada. The latter is a cenotaph for Jaswant Singh II that we didn't visit and the former is a 20th century Palace built by Maharaja Umaid Singh which we did, though only a museum is open to the public. The rest of the palace is occupied by a very posh hotel so off limits to poor plebs like us,  and the quarters of the grandson of Umaid Singh. The museum was a rather self-indulgent  review of the building of the palace in the 1930's but it did have a very unusual collection of clocks, of which we shall post a few photographs as a discrete blog.

Onwards to Ranakpur and then to something I was really looking forward to, Udaipur and its lakes and lake palaces.