Day 8: Jaisalmer to Jodhpur
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
9
228
Trip End
Jun 01, 2007
Jodhpur,
India
Friday, September 29, 2006
The return camel ride takes in no extra sights. The base of my spine is now sore.
There's just enough time back in Jaisalmer for us to shower and lunch before boarding the local bus to Jodhpur.
The distance is about 298km. It promises to take up to six hours.
The bus seems comfortable and spacious enough but then it fills up, then it fills up some more. Then, more people get on. Years of travelling on the tube in rush hour have wiped away any sense that I should give up my reserved seat to the frail.
There are two tiers to the bus, with upper-deck glass-doored cells for those prepared to lie down. From here someone vomits the length of the bus on the right side.
At Pokharan, people press past me to order food through the window and my heads squeezed into my seat.
There's little to see in the Thar Desert, goats nibbling and finding shade under thorn trees, occasional camels, vultures circling, villagers pumping from wells. As we near Jodhpur, we pass deep sandstone quarries and rocky hills. Peacocks peck at crops.
Jodhpur is more like Delhi - a thriving, noisy city but less obvious poverty and without gridlock (no cycle rickshaws).
We charge through town in auto-rickshaws to the Haveli Guest House in the Blue City. (Most of the homes here are painted pale blue following a Brahmin tradition). From the rooftop we get a splendid view of the Meherangarh fortress towering above the city.
For some sad reason the rest of the group lazily decide to eat at the hotel, so I strike out alone again in search of Priya's restaurant, on the advice of Binu. Typically I get lost, stuck in the straight lane of the market, then in the windy, steep alleyways of the housing. Finallt two kids lead me to the 19th century Clock Tower from where I can get my bearings and indulge in a bounty of an onion and tomato uttapam (a pancake served like a pizza with topping), allo mutter with jeera rice in a roadside restaurant open to the elements. I am the only westerner in the place, which is refreshing.
I get lost again on the way back, but the locals, though menacing on their motorbikes, are ever helpful with directions.
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What is child beer?
(It won't let me post this without content in the message field, so I'll be like Fred on Corrie and repeat, What is child beer, I ask ...)