Jodhpur, India

 Notes from the journal:

6/11

  • Took an Uber back to the Mumbai airport, went through several security checks (pretty smooth but different than what we were used to). Flew to Jodhpur and there was no public transit into the city so we booked an Uber but the driver wouldn’t come to the pickup point (turns out he didn’t want to pay the airport fee, which was included in what Uber charged us anyways) but he eventually came in and made us pay the airport fee again anyways. 
  • Eventually made it into the city and to our hotel, which was empty so we got a nice big room that was beautifully decorated with stained glass and little alcoves in the wall.
  • Went to the Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi footwell and saw people swimming in and spitting out the murky water.
  • Walked to the Ghanta Ghar clock tower and the Sardar market but it started to pour so we went back to the hotel.
  • The rain quickly stopped so we headed up to Mehrangarh Fort (and Jaswant Thada) but both were closed so we just went to a viewpoint to see the fort against the pretty skies from the rain. Lots of children were saying hello on our way up and down and a family introduced themselves to us. The mom asked if I was Tyler’s friend and when I said girlfriend she said “no, friend” and then introduced him to her oldest daughter 
  • Went to Sam’s Art Cafe next to the footwell, which was beautifully decorated and had good palak paneer.

6/12

  • The power kept going out and we were in India during the big heatwave (and the summers are just plain hot) so we woke up very hot and sweaty and decided to leave. 
  • Went back to Sam’s Art Cafe for breakfast and had chai
  • Walked up to Pachetia Hill and sat up top looking at the view of Jodhpur, chatting under the shade of a small tree and listening to the calls to prayer down below. 
  • We walked through the “blue city” part of town to see the murals and blue buildings. Tyler got his 5th bloody nose of the day, which lasted over 20 minutes, most likely due to the heat. He was trying to get it to stop bleeding as we were in the street and some locals were very concerned about him and very kindly offered for us to go inside their hotel. We weren’t sure if we would be charged for a room and the blood was going everywhere so we just stayed outside and Tyler leaned over the ditch because we ran out of tissues.
  • After our Uber experience the day before, we decided to just walk 30 mins to the train station, but since it was the heat of the day we both started to not feel so good. We filtered water at the station (some locals were very kindly concerned that we were drinking non-potable water but we assured them that we were filtering it), bought some chips to replenish our salt, and waited for our train.
  • Took a pretty uneventful 4 hour train ride to Jaipur. I was on the top of a three-tiered bunk and I just watched Netflix the whole time, but it was neat to experience a classic train ride in India.

Read if I referred you to this post:

  • Jodhpur is a very picturesque city and it was our favorite out of the northern cities we visited! I would not recommend going during summer and would expect some issues with transportation. Overall, I would recommend the sites we visited.
  • I would highly recommend Sam’s Art Cafe!
















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