Friday, October 27 Jodhpur

My train got into Jodhpur at 6am. I took a rickshaw in the dark to a hotel for a village safari, basically where white tourists go and photograph indigenous peoples of Rajasthan. The tour’s slogan might as well be: “Durag Niwas: Turning People into Objects Since 1882”. I got picked up by a small van, and what’s the first thing that happens? The tire goes flat. So we have to wait a while for the driver to fix it. I talked to the guide, a member of the Bishnoi caste (strictly vegetarian and opposed to killing anything). Some centuries ago, soldiers were cutting down trees in Rajasthan for fuel, and the Bishnois all hugged the trees, sacrificing themselves to save the trees. The 363 that died are the true definition of tree-huggers. The guide was dressed in a huge red turban, gold earrings, and pointy slippers. He invited me to stay in his natal village overnight and tomorrow (100 km outside Jodhpur). Then he mentioned it would cost 2000 Rs. I was expecting a friend, instead I got yet another tout. Our first stop was a small rural house, surrounded by a fence of thorny branches. Kids opened the gate, and showed me around. The floor was dirt, the walls dung, and the ceiling thatch. It’s amazing how resourceful these villagers are; they live in an infertile scrubland with nothing but dust and thorny bushes, and they manage to survive and produce India’s greatest wealth. After the house, we drove through small dusty paths to a weaver’s house. An old man, he wore a white turban and lungi, and chainsmoked bidis. He sat at his loom, weaving camel and sheep wool thread in and out, as the large wooden contraption pressed the thread down. Apparently he’s the last person who knows how to do this work in the village, since the younger generations refuse to do physical labor. Despite the amount of time and skill the weaving took, the carpets were ugly and rough, only suitable as doormats. We shot through the desert, kicking up a huge cloud of dust behind us. We stopped for brunch at a desert resort, recently built with a bunch of huts for tourists who want the rural desert experience. It also, for some reason, had a long row of toilets and sinks, right out in the open desert with no walls or ceiling. They had hookahs and machines to press and draw opium. The drug is used in Rajasthan for celebrations, and before battle. There were also deer horns, ships in a bottle, and turbans. Breakfast was good, but took an hour. After that, I was taken to see a wood-block dye factory, and a potter. Different wood-block prints and colors are used to signify specific things in Rajasthan. Turban colors signify caste, religion, and occasion. Brahmins wear pink, while Rajputs wear saffron, Bishnois white, and the lower castes black or brown. The style and type also determines class and village. Cool colors are worn during the summer and hot colors during the cold winters. Whites, greens, and blues are used at funerals. Reds is a celebratory color. These color codes developed in contrast to and as a direct result of the stark barren landscape of the deserts of Rajasthan. Back to reality, the potter was fascinating. He turns a 100 kg spindle by hand, and shapes clay pots by hand. It was really touristy and not a great tour, but what to do. I went back to Jodhpur and was too impatient to wait for a sightseeing bus, so instead I paid a rickshaw to take me to all the sights independently. Jodhpur was founded in 1459 by the Rajputs, and grew because of trade routes. Today it is the second-largest city in Rajasthan and is a leading city in the jewelry trade. The first stop was on the outskirts of Jodhpur, the Umaid Bhawan Palace and Museum, now partially converted into a Taj Hotel. It was grandiose and very nice, but not much was on display. Then he took me shopping, and of course, a complete waste of everyone’s time; Emporiums that tried to sell me a Rajasthani turban (essentially a 9-meter piece of cotton) for 900 Rs. The next stop was the Jaswant Thada, a white marble mausoleum with a great view of Meherangarh, “Majestic Fort”, which dominates Jodhpur below. Jodhpur is known as the Blue City (compared to Jaisalmer the yellow city, Udaipur the white city, and Jaipur the pink city) because Brahmins used to color their houses blue as a symbol of rank, and because it is an insect repellent. But soon, everyone in Jodhpur followed suit, and now the entire city looks like a beautiful sea of blue cubes. Even the water tanks are blue in Jodhpur. Its really beautiful looking out over the buildings, under the imposing Meherangarh Fort, perched on the rocky hill above. The rickshaw put-put its way up to the yellow fort. For 250 Rs, the foreign entry ticket entitles you to unlimited photos and a free audio tour. I gladly showed my American passport. Despite the negative connotation (audio tours vie with safari vests and bucket hats for the most touristy thing…ever) this was the best audio tour I have ever used. It had music and interviews. It made my visit to the fort. I ended up spending two full hours there. I also thought it was the most interesting fort. Like other forts, it has high winding corridors and walls to deter invaders. There are sati marks of the women who burned themselves in mourning of their husbands, intricate wooden windows where women could look out at the courtyards free from the gaze of men, nice paintings, palanquins, and jeweled rooms. After walking the ramparts and taking some breathtaking photos of the aquiline blue city below, I met the rickshaw, and we sped off out of town to the last stop, Mandore Gardens. Some kid at the fort was calling me ‘videshi’ (foreigner) and just to confuse him, I told him I wasn’t and that I don’t appreciate being called one. So he and his little friends ran off giggling. The gardens were touristy, but only to Indians out for the Friday afternoon. The regular crowd was present; courting couples, groups of guys hanging out, and families with children playing. But what made this park different was the abundance of ugly langur monkeys everywhere. As I walked into the park, I couldn’t tell the monkeys apart from the beggars sitting on the path, I couldn’t tell the monkeys from the gray-haired bearded Sadhu seated on the ledge of the temple, and I couldn’t tell the monkeys from the small children playing. People were feeding the monkeys and chasing them. I was scared; who knows how clean, rabid, or fierce they are. They are so human-like, though. I saw they spitting, picking each others’ hair, swinging to and from trees, running on all fours, eating with their little hands, and I even saw them having sex (which looks really awkward, as if you tried to picture two toddlers trying to go at it). Then the rickshaw driver again tried to take me shopping, which meant taking me back to the shop that charged 900 Rs for a turban. He just doesn’t get it. He finally dropped me off at the train station. Jodhpur, the city itself, is bustling and dirty, just like any other Indian city. Besides the abundance of camels and some blue buildings, it’s exactly the same. I went shopping before my train at 7:30 (the female voice of Indian Railways scared me because she said the train was arriving at 7:30 am, even though she meant 7:30pm). Remember how the Rajasthan government tried to charge me 900 Rs for a turban? Well, shopping on my own, I was able to buy two for 450 total. Then I bought some leopard-print Rajasthani slippers (I have full confidence that every girl will be swept off their feet by the sight of them), fake Polo shirts, and a HIDEOUS acid-wash shirt. I sat down at a busy thali restaurant and got a thali, but I must have ordered the butter thali because it felt like I was eating a bucket of Krisco. The curries were glistening yellow with oil, and drizzled with cheese. Even the yellow dal was saturated in oil. I had to scoop oil off the top, and that oil filled an entire section of the plate. The only bearable part of the meal was the butter naan, which was also covered in butter. The train station was crawling with touts, and a rickshaw driver asked where I wanted to be driven, and I said “Delhi please”. He laughed and stopped harassing me. Now since I consider myself well-accustomed to riding Indian Railways, I think it’s really funny seeing clueless and paranoid white tourists trying to ride the trains. They stick out like a sore thumb because of their huge expensive backpacks or luggage, completely waterproof and mosquito-proof clothes, tennis shoes, and money belts sticking out. They’re usually scared of pickpockets (which I am too, now), so they wear all their packs in front, and their heads turn like sprinklers as they attempt to find their train and platform, and look out for beggars and interested boys, who usually swarm them. Just because I was bored, I went up to this young white couple (who were stereotypically reading the Lonely Planet India guide) and pretended to be a tout, to see what it was like on the other side. I said “Hello friend, which country”. They replied, “Australia”, without making eye contact, and didn’t turn around or continue talking to me, so I just ended it and walked away. It would suck to be a tout, forced to be the annoying hawker that everyone hates, because you have no other means of earning a living. And it also sucks for people who aren’t touts, and are just trying to make friends, because I’ve definitely ignored normal people because I thought they were just greedy touts. I caught the “Super Fast” overnight Mandore Express to Delhi, but it still took an hour longer than expected. What I love about Delhi is that it’s exceptionally well-connected to the rest of India and the world. I just took a daytrip to Jodhpur, two states and 450 km away, for $10 round-trip, and no loss of sleep.