The sky was slowly losing its color, fading into the twilight of dawn, when Sherahazade.... no, just kidding, I am not going to tell you all our Indian adventures in third person, even though many of our travels reminded me strongly of Sherahazade and her struggle to keep alive by telling 1001 stories to her Maharadja, at least Jaisalmer, Udaipur, the Taj Mahal,... but let's not get lost in our stories. A lot less magical was our journey from Jaisalmer (that we had to leave one day) to
Jodhpur! 6 hours by bus and I can tell you, it was one of the worst experiences in my life. Not that 6 hours is particularly long, but if you need to go pee, well, I leave it to you. Moreover, you have to know that India does not have a lot of paved roads, so most of the time we were traveling on gravel roads I might dare to take with a 4-wheel-drive or a quad bike but not with a bus. While we were having the strong impression of risking our lives for nothing, our bus driver was having heaps of fun trying to drive as much as possible on only two instead of four wheels (maybe he didn't want to wear off the others too much) while trying to double other buses or trucks or while being doubles - do I have to mention that the road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, so we always went off the road at such moments? When rushing through some of the cities at 80km/h, I was sure that sometimes we only
got through the tiny gaps by using some of the magical abilities of Harry Potter's night bus - no way we could have passed otherwise, there simply was no room! Finally, we had the pleasure to experience a true sandstorm in the desert. This was particularly fun because the window next to me did not close and I could feel the sand between my teeth even days after this fantastic ride. When it started to rain, I did not only get soaking wet from the window side, no the bus was also leaking from the top and soon there was a little flood on the floor as well so that we had to heave our soaked bags onto our laps in order from them not to float away. So, scarred to death, soaked and powdered, squashed by the bag on my lap, wanting to go pee all the time - I had a great time traveling!
Where did we go that way? To Jodhpur, the blue city! I guess, I don't have to explain its name, you might have guessed it already when looking at the pictures. :) I liked Jodhpur a lot less than Jaisalmer because it simply wasn't that magical, it was much more crowded, dirty, smelly,... I had the slight impression of not being able to breath. Nevertheless, we went to visit the Fort, which you might already now if you follow the tabloids as Liz Hurley married her "Indian Prince"
there only two days before we got there (luckily because otherwise everything would have been closed!!). The Fort was also not as beautiful as Jaisalmer's (personal opinion) but a lot more impressive. In all its history it has never been taken, even though a queen once refused her maharajah to re-enter it after he had lost battle on the fields; she thought he had dishonored her and the Fort. Anyway, when walking up and looking at it, I think you can almost feel its strength
in the air! The picture above showing the bird-view of Jodhpur also shows some of the strong defense walls put up all around the Fort. The insides were again decorated with beautiful stone carvings, the older in red brick and the newer in yellow-colored sandstone. The museum inside the main palace showed old weapons, clothing, artwork, and some of the former rooms restored to their glory. Well, I guess you don't discuss taste but at least they were very impressive, shimmering and glittering everywhere! Some were rooms for music and dance and inspiration, some were sleeping rooms of the maharajahs, and some were conference rooms with hidden coins for spies and eavesdroppers. :)
Besides visiting the Fort, we unfortunately didn't do much else in Jodhpur even though we prolonged our stay for a day because David was taken ill by a nasty flue and he was in no condition to travel. Fortunately, we found a really, really nice hotel, as you can see on the picture - usually our rooms don't look this good!!! - with a good restaurant attached to it, which is also rather a luxury as restaurants that serve decent and eatable food are rather rare here. We spent our time sleeping, relaxing and getting ready to travel again - this time to Udaipur the white!
The sky was slowly losing its color, fading into the twilight of dawn, when Sherahazade.... no, just kidding, I am not going to tell you all our Indian adventures in third person, even though many of our travels reminded me strongly of Sherahazade and her struggle to keep alive by telling 1001 stories to her Maharadja, at least Jaisalmer, Udaipur, the Taj Mahal,... but let's not get lost in our stories. A lot less magical was our journey from Jaisalmer (that we had to leave one day) to
Jodhpur! 6 hours by bus and I can tell you, it was one of the worst experiences in my life. Not that 6 hours is particularly long, but if you need to go pee, well, I leave it to you. Moreover, you have to know that India does not have a lot of paved roads, so most of the time we were traveling on gravel roads I might dare to take with a 4-wheel-drive or a quad bike but not with a bus. While we were having the strong impression of risking our lives for nothing, our bus driver was having heaps of fun trying to drive as much as possible on only two instead of four wheels (maybe he didn't want to wear off the others too much) while trying to double other buses or trucks or while being doubles - do I have to mention that the road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, so we always went off the road at such moments? When rushing through some of the cities at 80km/h, I was sure that sometimes we only
got through the tiny gaps by using some of the magical abilities of Harry Potter's night bus - no way we could have passed otherwise, there simply was no room! Finally, we had the pleasure to experience a true sandstorm in the desert. This was particularly fun because the window next to me did not close and I could feel the sand between my teeth even days after this fantastic ride. When it started to rain, I did not only get soaking wet from the window side, no the bus was also leaking from the top and soon there was a little flood on the floor as well so that we had to heave our soaked bags onto our laps in order from them not to float away. So, scarred to death, soaked and powdered, squashed by the bag on my lap, wanting to go pee all the time - I had a great time traveling!
Where did we go that way? To Jodhpur, the blue city! I guess, I don't have to explain its name, you might have guessed it already when looking at the pictures. :) I liked Jodhpur a lot less than Jaisalmer because it simply wasn't that magical, it was much more crowded, dirty, smelly,... I had the slight impression of not being able to breath. Nevertheless, we went to visit the Fort, which you might already now if you follow the tabloids as Liz Hurley married her "Indian Prince"
there only two days before we got there (luckily because otherwise everything would have been closed!!). The Fort was also not as beautiful as Jaisalmer's (personal opinion) but a lot more impressive. In all its history it has never been taken, even though a queen once refused her maharajah to re-enter it after he had lost battle on the fields; she thought he had dishonored her and the Fort. Anyway, when walking up and looking at it, I think you can almost feel its strength
in the air! The picture above showing the bird-view of Jodhpur also shows some of the strong defense walls put up all around the Fort. The insides were again decorated with beautiful stone carvings, the older in red brick and the newer in yellow-colored sandstone. The museum inside the main palace showed old weapons, clothing, artwork, and some of the former rooms restored to their glory. Well, I guess you don't discuss taste but at least they were very impressive, shimmering and glittering everywhere! Some were rooms for music and dance and inspiration, some were sleeping rooms of the maharajahs, and some were conference rooms with hidden coins for spies and eavesdroppers. :) 
Besides visiting the Fort, we unfortunately didn't do much else in Jodhpur even though we prolonged our stay for a day because David was taken ill by a nasty flue and he was in no condition to travel. Fortunately, we found a really, really nice hotel, as you can see on the picture - usually our rooms don't look this good!!! - with a good restaurant attached to it, which is also rather a luxury as restaurants that serve decent and eatable food are rather rare here. We spent our time sleeping, relaxing and getting ready to travel again - this time to Udaipur the white!
No comments:
Post a Comment