Jodhpur

I arrived in Jodhpur late last night. The train was once again about an hour late, although it left on time (and had a/c). I basically spent the last hour worrying every stop was Jodhpur and I had missed my stop. These places aren't well marked at all so it seemed possible. Of course it turns out that Jodhpur has about 1 million residents, so the train station is rather large and obvious, with probably about two thirds of the people on the train getting off here. I guess my worry was unfounded.

This morning I went to Meherangarh Fort, which is huge, and overlooks the whole city. I showed up right before they opened the gates, and sat to watch the other tourists. There were four Spanish girls waiting as well, and they were soon swarmed by a group of men with cell phone cameras. They all took turns taking pictures with the girls, who smiled and laughed along. I got a picture of the whole scene (to the right) and I was happy that for a moment I wasn't the attraction. Of course as they filed away from the girls and into the now open gate, one man broke away from the pack and stood about a meter away from me to snap a cell phone picture of me (and I was sitting down!), so I guess in the weird tourist hierarchy, four girls trumps alone white guy. Anyway, the audio guide was excellent and it was a good tour to an impressive fort.

After the fort I went down to the Sardar Market, known for it's spices. In fact, that's where I am right now. It's pretty cool, with huge piles of spices to be scooped and weighed for sale alonside the usual fruits, vegetables, and handicrafts.

Jodhpur is known as the blue city, from the indigo stained buildings it contains. Supposedly it helps keep the buildings cool and insect free, although if that were the case I'm not sure why pretty much every building in every city is stained indigo blue. At one point it was just the highest caste here that had the blue houses, but now it's everyone, although I'm told the city is still largely split into neighborhoods based on caste.

My visit here is short, as I leave for Udaipur by bus tomorrow morning (there isn't a train), so now I'm off to make the most of it.