The Blue City

Trip Start Sep 19, 2002
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Trip End Sep 22, 2003


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Sunday, August 24, 2003

24th - Arrived at 5.45am (!!!!) and waded through the usual sea of bodies in the half light. We headed for the Haveli Guest House (Haveli means ornate residence) and thankfully they were awake and amenable to showing us their last room. It was over 250 years old and full of character with a seperate curtained off sleeping area so we crashed there for a couple of hours before we checked in and met the staff. They were all so nice and explained the latest scams and gave us their number in cse anything happened and we needed their help! The latest scams involve poisened biscuits which they open in front of you so they look safe but you need a doctor within 20 minutes which they are only too happy to help with. The other is friendly people who invite you into their homes and henna your hands for free etc and then ask for a donation to their temple (pocket) which you might refuse and then the henna painting costs 400 rupees when it should cost about 20-30. Scam wise they wre also surprised that we managed to get straight there as the tuk-tuks have a tendency to take you to other Haveli's that are not in the Lonely Planet. India is the one place where they have really embraced this book to the point that they will give you the page number they want you to read for the hotel / shop / restaurant that they want you to go to. Here as in Vietnam, once a place is in the book, other places borrow the name to get business. Cheeky eh?

In the afternoon we ventured out into the old city which was nice and quiet compared to everywhere else we had been. We went into the square to see the famous clock tower and had a special lassi. Lassi is the curd drink they consume here by the gallon and there are various types but here in Jodhpur the speciality is makhani and is flavoured with saffron and cardoman. Most hotels charge about 20-30r for a glass but in the 'Indian' places it is much cheaper and ours was only 10r. Another special lassi is the bhang version. Bhang is a derivative of marijuana so we didn't have any of this - our constitutions are bad enough as it is! Jodhpur is famous for spices too so we went to the spice market and relieved ourselves of some money. We tried the saffron tea which was nice although we left the free sweets alone as they were covered in flies. Another famous item here is the textiles as in most of Rajasthan and we bought a few things there including some mirrorwork cushion covers which is a particular speciality here. We thought it was best to move straight on to Jaisalmer before we spent all our money but I wasn't too worried as I knew we were coming back! That night we had the best meal of our entire stay in India. After 4 weeks here we still haven't been offered any mango chutney and we certainly havn't been given any free Baileys or Sambuca. It's just not right.
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