I'll Be There Dreckly: The Blue City

Jodhpur, India

The train journey to Jodhpur was for a change fairly uneventful, bar a wandering two year old who, completely unrestrained by his parents, wouldn't leave me and my things alone! Arriving around 9pm, I took a rickshaw across Jodhpur then navigated the dark narrow rabbit warren of streets that make up the city centre to eventually find a decent guesthouse. I was pleased for once to get a characterful, quiet and windowless room, which allowed me the best sleeps since leaving Krageholm in Sweden many months ago!

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Jodhpur is famous for its huge and imposing fort which towers above the town on a rocky outcrop, and also for it's blue-painted houses. The first day there I set out to wander round the maze of streets, not worrying that I was completely lost as it was so interesting to see. Locals hanging out chatting, cows wandering, women cooking on the doorstep with little gas stoves, and young kids playing crickets with plastic bats and balls. I eventually found my way up the steep path and got to Mehrangarh Fort, built by the state's royal family in the 15th century.

The former palace sat in the centre of the complex, and was impressively crafted from the local red sandstone with some impressive but ostentatious rooms inside. In the gardens below where no one else seemed to visit, I stood and watched literally hundreds of eagles circling overhead, a common sight there apparently. On the way back down to the town, I stopped at Jaswant Thanda; a beautiful marble building and gardens built as a memorial to a former ruler, and relaxed in the afternoon sun taking in the view over the city for a while.

Mehrangarh Fort, looming over the town

Jaswant Thanda

The next day will go down as one of the best in a while, a really authentic local experience, something that really can't be bought. I had no real plan for the day except to have a wander around the bustling markets, shops and businesses of the town, which went on forever in every direction. I passed a clock tower (very uncommon in India), a urban lake and a very unique and impressive step well - the latter of impressive architecture, but full of grotty water and rubbish. I stopped outside a small factory, no bigger that a living room, where they processed locally grown cotton then stuffed it into cloth to make duvet covers, and one of the family members who runs it came out and chatted. A little further on there was another small factory making air conditioning units from sheet metal. The latter being my speciality at home, it was interesting to compare quality and working conditions, which were both a little different to what we're used to! They were delighted to be talking to a 'foreigner' and all got distracted from their jobs for a few minutes, asking for their pictures to be taken.

Sheet metal factory

Pillow fight!

Continuing on, I past a small printing shop, a man doing lathe work and a chap sharpening knives and scissors for people. I bought some kchores - a deep fried vegetable snack which were just 3 pence (3 rupees) each... and may have been the cause of problems to come. Tourists only tend to visit the attractions and main market in Jodhpur, and having got far away from that area I'd not seen any others for hours but it felt safe nevertheless, as India does as a whole.

Getting out of the busy area, I decided to go down a side street and happened upon a natural tower of rock with a tiny Hindu shrine at the top, stood completely on its own high above the surrounding warren of houses. I'd spotted it from afar the day before, and now found it purely by accident. The way up was blocked by a working building site - a temple being extended, so it wasn't exactly open to the public. Whilst I looked up at it, two lads of around twenty who were stood nearby - Navratan and Karan - started talking to me, and as they worshipped at the temple offered to take me up to the top, so I thought why not. They led me up a path outside the working site, passing both male and female workers laboriously carrying heavy buckets of sand and gravel on their heads, and they kindly gave me a cup of tea as we passed through. We entered the building, and knowing the common Indian attitude to health and safety, I walked forwards carefully as we asscended flights of steps and squeezed between scaffolding. We got to the stack of rock itself and had to ascend a ladder to the top, thankfully a sturdy fixed steel one. The views up there were absolutely fantastic in all directions around, and I stood taking them in whilst leisurely chatting to Navratan and Karan.

Back at the bottom, a couple of the labourers started talking to me in broken English, passing the time of day. Their work looked backbreaking, so I decided to find out exactly how hard by asking if I could carry one of the buckets to the concrete mixer - on my head like them obviously! They were happy to let me join in, and I lifted the pan of sand which must have weighed about 15kg, and rested it on my skull. I walked up the path, passing the twenty-odd other labourers, working as a kind-of walking production line, who were in stitches watching me join in, before I chucked the sand into the concrete mixer fifty metres away. It was a great laugh, and I'm glad it brightened their day, but showed me a different perspective on just how tough life is for some people here.

They wouldn't give me the job

I was on a roll. I continued on, walking about a hundred metres around the corner where a group of kids were playing cricket on the street. They started talking and I joined in their game for a couple of minutes, which was great fun yet again. Unfortunately the mood turned a bit sour afterwards when they followed me for five minutes or so, asking for chocolate or money and wouldn't leave me whatever I said. Fortunately a local fobbed them off for me eventually. A few minutes after this I saw a local barbers, and went in, having been so impressed by experience of the cutthroat shave I had a few days before. I was amazed to see him heating a mug of water, by dangling into the metal cup, a live heating element that had been removed from a kettle, holding it by the cable. All was fine, but it was a close shave with disaster (sorry!).

The following day I'd planned to go on a tour to an interesting village an hour or so away, inhabited by a unique religious sect who hug trees, but it was one of those occasions when I couldn't find any tour groups going, and no-one at the local bus station could understand what I was on about. It wasn't meant to be, and sometimes it's not worth putting too much time to one place when there's so many others to visit. I changed my plans and walked through the busy market square then crossed the street, when suddenly I heard a rattle and a squeal, as a boy swerved around me on his bike and crashed onto the tarmac. The poor lad got up and dusted himself off, and looking shocked, worked out whether he was hurt but thankfully wasn't. I'm still not sure what happened but might have been partly my fault, though I'm not sure he was paying attention either!

I walked across town to Umaid Bhawan palace. I'm a little indifferent about palaces these days, but quite liked this one as it was a more modern take, and impressed on its materials and scale rather than ostentatious decor. With 347 rooms it's one of the biggest in the world, and was designed by a British architect, employing 3,000 people for 15 years before opening in 1944. Enough facts?! I particularly liked the fact that they had Someset ciders on one of the old royal drinks menus. Not that much was actually open to the public, so after an hour or so I headed back across town. I passed an open shutter of a fabrication shop, making steel windows and doors amongst other things, and got yapping with one of the guys, who let me walk inside and have a quick look. Once again a little different to my old workplace!

Umaid Bhawan palace

My final stop in Jodhpur was the city zoo. Now I'm not actually a fan of zoo's, they don't give you any of the excitement of seeing animals in nature and can be pretty cruel, but I was intrigued by what an Indian zoo would look like so went for that more than the animals, and the £0.60 entry charge wasn't too offputting. I visited a zoo in China a few years ago, and on the whole it was a pretty depressing place - this one was no different. The animals all appeared to be in good health, but were all kept in with grim steel cages or concrete houses, usually too small for them, with the roof covered over for shade. If monkeys and lions could commit suicide, these were ready to step off the bridge. But the worst thing was the attitude of some of the Indian visitors towards them, with people throwing stones and shouting at the bear and lion to capture their attention and get them to move. I had to walk away, it was disgraceful. My curiosity with an Indian zoo was satisfied.