Jodhpur

Don't tell me you guys haven't heard of this shop, it's world famous for crying out loud

So back on the road we were. After attempting to book a coach ourselves and failing at the final hurdle as apparently our international cards are only good for around ~60% of card machines in India, we managed to get our ticket booked at a travel agents of a guy who we’d befriended a couple of days before, who also gave us some great recommendations on where to go and how long for. Our coach was due to leave around 7.30am, but to be entirely sure we were there with good time (Not knowing where the coach stops were and praying the rickshaw drivers knew their stuff) we decided to leave our guest house at 6am.

As we hadn’t checked out at this point and were also locked into the place (Thankfully no fire broke out..!) we had a tired conversation with the owner of the guest house, paid up and were on our way. Within a minute or two we were loaded into a rickshaw which seemed to have two people in the driver’s seat, and on our way at a remarkable pace. Within no time we arrived at a stretch of travel shops, one of which did bear the name of the company on our booking slip, so we were confident we were in the correct place. After handing over the agreed 100rs to the driver, who then looked at me and said ‘100 each’, prompting a laugh from me and a smirk from him as if to say he was only joking, honest. Any attempt, of course…

Not anticipating how fast we would actually get to this point, we ended up hanging around for about an hour, fortunately with a chai in hand. The coach eventually arrived, and we boarded. This was our first experience of a seater + sleeper bus, so unsure of what to expect other than two levels of seating/sleeping, we climbed aboard. The layout was quite clever, with a level just above the seats of beds, which allowed for minimum headroom but a bit more capacity. The bed sections even had little doors and curtains around them for maximum privacy on public road transport. But I digress – we had no such luxury, we had seats. Seats 20 and 21 to be exact. Which appeared to be the seat numbers for 3 other people also. Typical India. We grabbed the next seats along and got as comfortable as possible for our 7.5 hour journey.

The most accurate word to use to describe the journey would be hell. Perhaps with an ‘utter’ thrown in also. I believe the coaches suspension had been made of what used to be parts of the road surface, as it certainly wasn’t any form of spring or dampening in the slightest, and coupled with the abundance of holes, rubble, cliffs and roadwork’s on the road allowed for us to recoup none of the sleep we had lost from a very early morning. The amount of times my head bounced around and rebounded off the incredibly low ceiling/window/Diana became too numerous to keep track of, and I was counting down each excruciating hour hoping for the journey to come to an end as soon as possible.

Thankfully, we eventually arrived. Upon leaving the coach we were accosted by about 20 rickshaw drivers, all trying to attract our attention. We had no choice but to ask one of them to take us to our destination, but as per usual when first arriving to a town in India we had no idea if they’d have meters or we’d be playing a game of guess-a-fair-price. It seemed to be the latter. We haggled to a price we figured could be reasonably fairish, and hopped in the rickshaw. The noticed immediately a difference, these rickshaws seemed incredibly long and thin compared to all the others. Quirky.

Unfortunately the driver had no idea where we wanted to go, although of course, he said he did. After some stops and passing around my phone, we ended up going straight into the heart of the market. Here it became apparent the reason for the long, thin rickshaws, instead of the standard shaped ones – the market was just wide enough for two bikes and maybe a pedestrian to pass each other. This meant massive traffic, incredibly hectic navigation, and as our driver had no idea where we were going, somewhat annoyed people behind us.

Shockingly the coach didn't take us down this far

Eventually after asking more people, and me pointing out a sign for our hostel to him, we found the place tucked down a side street in the market. No complaints about location, it was certainly in the middle of the action. The hostel was named the ‘Bob Marley Hostel’, however using my deductive reasoning I came to the conclusion this was a fairly new name, as there were signs in a very similar wording and typeface everywhere saying Jagdamba Hostel/Restaurant was in this location, also backed up by the Wi-Fi name being JAGDAMBA. This may have accounted for why the driver had no idea where it was.

My only guess is that George Bush had a stab at decorating this place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A)

Once inside we were shown to our room, which was basically in reception. The room was fine though, and although it had its own bathroom, it appeared to have a 7 foot partitioning wall that didn’t quite reach the ceiling by another foot or so, which seemed to be a neighbouring bathroom. The room contained many cupboards and doors, doors to the window which seemed to overlook the car park, double doors to the bathroom, and doors to absolutely nowhere. It was painted blue, probably something to do with Jodhpur being mostly blue, but also had a blue lightbulb fitted which was pretty ineffective at anything other than creating puzzled expressions on our faces. Pretty good all in all, and we were only planning to be here one night as we were told there wasn’t much to do for longer than a day.

A few moments later the guy knocked on the door again, asking if we had paid our rickshaw driver. We replied yes, but apparently he was still hanging around outside. Diana went out to speak to him and he seemed not to be after anything, although after a conversation Diana had with someone she believes he was expecting to be paid by the hostel also for bringing us to the hostel, even though we booked it ourselves and practically showed him where it was.

So, introductions done and we’d moved in, we took this opportunity to explore. As Diana mentioned in the last post, I was ill at this time, with some form of sinusitis. Whilst I had little pain, and the constant nasal block was annoying, I had a problem far more prominent. Whilst in India, you really need all (well, most) of your senses about you. I was lucky enough that my sense of smell had diminished, and reliably informed by Diana that this was indeed a fortunate occurrence, however, one of my ears seemed permanently blocked. In a country where there is noise all around you, traffic alerts you to its presence not by slowing down, but by sounding a horn, and people are constantly shouting at you, there is little more disorienting than not having a correct sense of hearing. This, combined with the very narrow streets of Jodhpur, left me feeling incredibly vulnerable a lot of the time and a lot more guarded than I’d otherwise have been. But we only had a day, and it was now lunch time so we moved onwards to a rooftop restaurant down the road, where we got our first glimpse of the hilly area, multitude of buildings and the nearby hill fort.

Foreboding clouds also... 

After lunch, we proceeded along the market area. Diana had a requirement for sandals, after finding some good sandals previously in Pondicherry and the straps holding them now starting to fail after a month of trekking around in them every day. For anyone who somehow doesn’t know Diana’s footwear requirements, they’re fairly specific. This caused a situation of entering perhaps 15 shops, and holding the following conversation, whilst I sat quietly in the corner and played a game on my phone, knowing we would be here a while:

Diana: I’m looking for sandals in green colour.

Shopkeeper: Ah yes yes, no problem, sit down.

*Sitting occurs. Shopkeeper produces first of many boxes*

Diana: No no, not pink colour, green colour.

*I point at any part of her clothing to indicate the colour we meant*

Shopkeeper: Oh oh GREEN colour! No problem!

*Another box arrives*

Diana: Without the toe bit, with a strap.

Shopkeeper – now looking a little panicked: No problem!

*More boxes dragged down from shelves, shopkeeper frantically looking through them. Produces another for Diana’s perusal*

Diana: No this is more blue, light green only.

Shopkeeper: Okay okay.

*More boxes arrive, shop starts to look like an episode of Deal or No Deal*

Diana: No only green, this is red and yellow also.

*Another*

Diana: No heel, flat only, doing lots of walking!

*Shopkeeper gets desperate*

Diana: Well no, these are gold.

Shopkeeper: Yes but these are very very good price, normally 500 rs, I can sell to you especially for 200.

Diana: But these are gold, with a toe bit and a heel.

Shopkeeper: But very very good price, best in all Jodhpur, you won’t find this better price!

Diana: But I don’t want this... *Gets up to leave, I follow suit*

Shopkeeper: Okay wait one more one more.

Diana: Okay…

*Shopkeeper frantically produces anything he can, which is usually a chunky rubber croc-like sandal in turquoise*

Diana: No, more lady-like..! Sorry.

And we finally leave. This almost exact scenario happened in almost every establishment. In the end out of pure desperation, she settled on a pair with a bit between the toe, knowing that she hates the feeling and it is uncomfortable and will probably cause blisters. But the shade of green was right, so that’s the important bit anyway.

Whilst looking around we spotted signs mentioning a ‘Bishnoi Village Safari’. This seemed fairly interesting, so we made a note of it for later to look into how this operates, hoping to cram in as much as possible before we leave Jodhpur. On further discussions that evening, we decided rather than to rush it all we would ask to stay another night, as we weren’t in a massive rush and there was at least a little more to do than we first envisaged. We headed back to the hostel, and settled for bed, when we got a knock on the door and a load of people went into the bathroom, muttering the hot water was broken in the room and they were going to try and fix it. After 2 men, 1 lady and a child wandered through our room, they decided it couldn’t be fixed and if we wanted hot water we could ask them and they’d find us a free bathroom we could use. We didn’t even realise when we booked it we’d have the potential to get the luxury of hot water so I took note of this for later.

The following morning we confirm another night, and Diana casually asked about booking the village tour. Unfortunately we were then informed that there was other people who went that morning, had we said earlier we could have split the cost with them. With that in mind, we got the cost from them and figured we’d ask anywhere we could to see where the cheapest we could get it would be. Our main focus for the day was the famous fort, which we decided was in walking distance and we’d be silly not to do so.

After some wandering up narrow residential streets, up hills and being greeted by locals, I spotted a tiny sign saying ‘To Fort’. Somewhat confused by the lack of tourists in what was apparently the biggest attraction of Jodhpur, we continued along the path, up long hills and through imposing gates. After a while, it seemed we’d approached the back way, as suddenly we were on a path with hundreds of tourists, mostly from other parts of India, and we hunted down the ticket office as we were already 3 ‘audio guide’ stops through.

After finding the office and coughing up more than we pay on two nights’ accommodation, and leaving my credit card behind the desk as a deposit for the audio guide headsets which I was less than keen to do, we proceeded through. We popped our head into the cafe which cost a small fortune (they offered a snack they referred to as 'Samosa Bread', which intrigued me. I wanted to try it until I actually saw what it was, see below...). The fort was actually kept in very good condition considering its age and the sheer amount of tourists pushing through, and very interesting artefacts such as Elephant Howdahs (seats for Maharajah’s placed on elephants), colourful decorative rooms where the Maharajah would have been entertained, and some history on the surrounding area. The fort also provided an amazing view of the surrounding areas.

The legendary Samosa Bread. I have no idea if it tasted as good as it looks

All a bit blue really. No smurfs in sight

Seems this one somehow managed to sneak through proof reading, be more consistent!

Once we’d dominated this particular fortress, we decided to wander some of the lesser known streets on the way back to town, and found a little restaurant hidden on a rooftop up a very windy path out of the way of anywhere. Here we asked about the village tour also, as every guest house seemed to have a contact for it, but it was more expensive unless they found others to do it also. We took their number to ask later.

Heading into town, we were now also thinking about our onward journey. Our next stop is a town called Bundi, one we hadn’t planned on visiting, or even heard of until we spoke to the guy who gave us recommendations in Udaipur. After telling him what we were looking for in India, he immediately said we should check this place out, so we started looking up coaches, which I wasn’t looking forward to owing to the past experience. Once again, we did our research, tried to book the ticket and were kicked out at the final stage. We hunted down a travel agent and managed to find one near the centre of the town, by the clock tower.

Entering the room, a fairly small room with three people already inside who I assumed worked there as they were behind the counter, I asked about getting a coach to Bundi, knowing full well what the options were. The lady behind the counter, on her phone, said she could find out no problem, and continued playing a game on her phone. Not sure whether she would look into it soon for me or if she actually even heard, and not wanting to disturb her, we waited for a few seconds to see if she was just wrapping up. She carried on playing, but the guy next to her picked up his phone and made a call, which fortunately was related to our enquiry. Owing to the fact our journey would be overnight and we knew how uncomfortable seats were, we were planning to opt for sleepers this time, hoping it would be a little more pleasant. The guy quoted us for the tickets, almost double what I was expecting, and we left to hunt down another place, leaving the staff to play their games in peace. We found another travel agent, who managed to book the seats we actually wanted for only a small commission and was very helpful, and asked him about the village tour. He started recommending we didn’t do it and recommended something else miles away for far more money, so we thanked him and left before we were roped into something else.

Sorry, are we disturbing you?

Eventually we decided we’d book the village tour through our hostel, so returned and confirmed the price with them. All arranged, we headed to the rooftop where the hostel had its own restaurant, with a somewhat limited menu. The food was fine however and whilst we were up there, a German guy asked us if we could recommend a website for booking coaches. Letting him know our experiences, we end up chatting with him for a while and helping him work out the best route to Jaisalmer. Turns out, people had told him there were no trains so a coach was the only option, but a quick search revealed loads of trains available, I can only imagine someone getting a cut from a coach company was involved.

After a while two people he was currently travelling with turned up and somehow we end up converting the restaurant into a personal cinema, watching Slumdog Millionaire on one of their laptops plugged into the sound system, whilst the restaurant staff were sat around a table drinking whiskey. They seemed quite excited about watching it, until they realised the film was in English and hard for them to understand. There were no subtitles in either language, so we did our best to explain the English parts they didn’t get and they translated the Hindi parts.

We awake early the next morning to meet up with our driver who would take us around the villages and various other stops around Jodhpur. First stop was a place they made pottery. Unlike other pottery places we’ve seen where they use a motor or pedals to turn the wheel, this place had a stone in a rut on the ground which they turned using a stick, building up momentum, with the stone eventually just continuing to spin by itself, which seems a far more efficient manner of handling it to me. Within a few minutes he’d produced a very neat and tidy pot and a money box, and asked if we’d like a go, to which we didn’t take up the offer as I’d had a go before and I wasn’t particularly good at it. We had a look among all the items they had made, an obvious attempt to sell us items although no pressure on us at all or even a mention of money, which was nice. He showed us a ‘magic pot’, where he poured water into the bottom of it, turned it over and no water came out. He then showed us one that had been smashed open so the magic didn’t last long, and apparently they had a practical purpose to burn oils, so that mystery was solved fairly quickly.

Next stop was the Bishnoi village. The Bishnoi way of life involves following 29 specific rules and has focuses on protecting trees and the environment. The lifestyle is very simplistic and requires them to prepare their own food, shelter animals who require it and have a minimal impact on their surroundings. We had a look around their house and living conditions, were given tea, we asked some questions on their lives and were shown a ritual they perform where they drink opium in a certain way. He made a ritualistic turban which was shortly placed upon my head, and we watched the guy getting off his face. A couple of photos taken and we left before his utter inebriation kicked in. It wasn’t even lunch time yet.

Bishnoi kitchen with all modern amenities

Wacky head gear - a child looks on in awe

Also unisex - wonderful!

More grace and finesse than shooting up in an alley, same great buzz

Onwards, to a place that weaved rugs. En route our driver said we may see wild animals, such as peacocks and gazelle and deer. He seemed to promise we’d see them a few times, and each time state we might not as they’re wild animals. We tried to explain we understood the random nature of animals, and just looked out the sides of the jeep (I say sides as the jeep was completely open, about as basic as you could expect a vehicle to be. Certainly no doors). After a few moments of seeing absolutely nothing, we came to the conclusion this would not be a successful animal safari for us, however the driver had other ideas and pointed off into the distance. ‘Look, gazelle!’ he exclaimed. Diana and I both peered into the distance, unable to make out anything at all, and asked if he was sure as we couldn’t see them. Again it pointed to the same place. At this point I figured he’d had a few swigs of the opiates provided earlier, as there was nothing to be seen, but humoured him and took out my camera to try and zoom in and see it. Lining up the photo on 26x zoom to where he said, and showing him the screen with him excitedly saying ‘Yes there’, I took the picture and zoomed in further. Sure enough, there, highly camouflaged and what looked like a half marathons distance away were two gazelles. This stunt occurred three more times, with gazelle and peacocks perfectly camouflaged in the far distance, and the driver spotting them as if they were casually sat on the bonnet posing for us. I’m not entirely sure what other super powers he had, but his eyes were certainly incredibly on point.

The picture doesn't do justice to just how far away these were

Boo! Peacock! Honestly

We arrive at the weaving place and are greeted by three tiny puppies who seemed very excitable and friendly, as such, we didn’t actually get through the gate for a few minutes. Once we finally made it in, we went into a room with a man working on a type of loom, about 3 by 1 metres. The weaving was a very manual process, and involved a layering process where each alternating string was raised/lowered after each weave, locking the thread into place. Very interesting to watch, and apparently depending on the size of the piece, can take up to a month to complete. After showing us a wide range of rugs they’d made, again with a subtle hint of ‘buy something’ to it, we left, making sure to say goodbye to the puppies again.

Diana, leader of the pack

Some serious patience required. And string

Our final stop was a place that dealt with fabrics, but seemed to be a local community initiative, where local people would create pieces or alter pieces and they’d be bought by the company and inspected, tidied up where required and sold on. We first went to a room to see people working on improving the pieces, tidying up loose ends and re-stitching where required, and then taken to a room with seats to be shown all the pieces they had. Some of these items were sold in the local markets, others exported to large retailers all around the world and were clearly very carefully inspected for a more western market.

The tour was finished, and our driver took us back to the clock tower in the centre of the market, as it would now be impossible to drive a jeep down the narrow local streets. Not that I think that would have stopped him if we’d insisted, but we were quite happy to walk it and we wanted lunch at this point anyway. We found another hotel with a rooftop restaurant at the other end of the town, for what we hoped would be a fairly uneventful lunch. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we finished eating, the heavens opened and a torrential downpour ensued. Taking shelter in the reception until it passed, we decided we’d retire to our hostel for the rest of the day until we needed to get the coach.

We just about managed to make it back before the next rainstorm hit. We’d now checked out of our room so sat in reception for a while, working out a plan of action. At this point, one of the employees at the hostel thrust a letter into my hands, asking me to explain what it meant as it was English. The letter was on a nice paper (for my ex colleagues, around 150gsm, US Letter size, watermarked, off white but not quite conqueror) and looked very official. Within a few seconds I realised I was reading a cease and desist letter from California, on behalf of the Marley family, informing them they must stop using the name Bob Marley in any of their trading going forwards. I passed this information to the hostel owner without the legalese jargon and watched the colour drain from his face. As per my original suspicions, the name had only been changed 3 months prior. They had just finished getting signs made, business cards, new menus, decorations, and the part that actually landed them in trouble, online listings. Attached to the C+D letter was a print out of a page from TripAdvisor, where they’d evidently done a search on ‘Bob Marley’ and found this establishment.

After giving incredibly poor legal advice, as we are in no way shape or form lawyers, we believe the hostel is changing its name simply to ‘Bob Hostel’. The whole reason for the change in the first place was due to Jagdamba being hard for tourists to remember, to the point one tourist apparently got completely lost, couldn’t find the place after checking in and leaving his bags there, and having to crash at another guest house for a night to try and find it in the morning. The owner kept stating there was a similar named place in Pushkar was trading without problems, but we weren’t quite sure what he wanted us to do about this.

We retired to the rooftop, still raining heavily but with comfier seating, and waited for the hours to pass until we needed to leave to get our coach. I managed to wrangle a hot shower even though we were no longer checked in, and eventually the time came to leave. We found the closest rickshaw, who wanted a small fortune to take us even though we believed the stop wasn’t too far away, but he insisted otherwise. Not wanting to be ripped off, we found another rickshaw driver a little further down, except he spoke little English and had no idea what we wanted. He then took our coach ticket into a shop to ask someone else, at which point we had no way of telling anyone else where we wanted to go and were a little stuck but to wait and see what he said. As we weren’t sure exactly how long the journey would take, we wanted to get a move on as quickly as possible, but this guy was starting a small argument amongst 4 men as to where we wanted to go. Eventually he decided he’d known all along and took us for cheaper than the first, but at this point we were feeling the rupees we’d saved in the form of stress, so perhaps we should have just gone for the first guy after all. Either way, we made it to the coach stop and everything checked out okay, so after a short wait, we boarded our night coach to Bundi with our sleeping bags and pillows at the ready, looking forward to seeing what joys a sleeper coach would bring.

Bye bye you little posers