Day 14 – Jodhpur, The Majestic Blue city
Day 14 – Saturday, 9th Nov 2013
While planning day itineraries – we come across the most common suggestion from locals is to book a rickshaw for a day. They charge Rs 500/- or so and stay with you for 5-6 hours while you visit all the attractions. They try to cram many things in a day and sometimes rush you at the touristy stuff. Khyati and I like to take our own time and we prefer to do individual Rickshaws to the next destination. This saves us some money but on the flip side, we have to haggle with the Rickshaw wallah each time for a fair price.
It’s 10 am and Khyati and I are heading for brunch at the restaurant. Sohel (hotel owner) personally attends to us and makes sure we have got everything we need for our Jain food. We brunch on few Veg Parathas and yogurt, very filling.
It’s 11 am and we are out on the streets of Jodhpur trying to find a rickshaw for Mehrangarh Fort. The fort is on a hill and the rickshaw trudges along at a snail’s pace. There are lots of tourist buses parked on the side of the street. I wonder why don’t the museum authorities create a dedicated parking zone and charge for parking? They would make some money and stabilize the crowding of vehicles at the entrance. There is a huge line to get through security and we slowly make progress. Once inside, we purchase tickets to the fort. There are separate pricing for Indian tourists, Indian students, Foreign tourists and foreign students. We purchase the camera and audio tickets along with our entry fare. There is an elevator within Mehrangarh Fort to help old and needy people ascend the fort without troubling their legs. There is a small price you pay for convenience.
Mehrangarh Fort is truly majestic and we marvel at the carvings, paintings and passage ways that have been created within the palace.
Royal seat during the king’s reign
palace view
A brief line about Sati tradition – If the king lost his life in a battle or died of any other circumstances, his queens would jump in the pyre with him hoping to be together eternally. This next photo is of the queens who dipped their hand in clay and left their finger prints behind. True sacrifice!
Sati tradition
How would we look if we chose to adorn the royal attire? Well, this next picture is for you to judge.
Rajasthan Royals
It’s 3 pm and we are walking the pathway down to the gate entrance. We see a life sized poster of zip lining adventures, it is an aerial rope slide and provides fantastic views of Mehrangarh fort and the city around. This had me lured and we immediately walk down to the registration office. Zip Lining is run by a professional company – Flying Fox. The costs were Rs 1599/- pp and there was a small training session before the actual zip lining. There were 6 different zip lines that we had to tread on in a few minutes. The experience was thrilling and I would love to do it again. As I did the adventure in the evening, I got to see gorgeous views of the gorge and the sunset. Truly mind blowing!
MVI 7312 from Paras Mamania on Vimeo.
zip lining
How could we leave this place without the famous picture that is presented in Incredible India photos? It’s the blue Jodhpur town with a sunset view captured from our camera.
Blue City
It’s 6:30 pm and we take the rickshaw back to a Jain temple and offer our prayers there.
It’s 8 pm and we are relishing some Indo-Chinese fare at the roof top restaurant.
Tomorrow is going to be a new day and new adventures. more soon…
Best,
Paras