Jodhpur, the Blue City

You can't be happy in Rajasthan, othwise you get flies and dust in your teeth! Our lips, fingernails, face, etc. are all covered in dirt within a minute of leaving our hotel room. I look like a Japanese tourist with a hankerchief covering my mouth everywhere we go! Paul has been coughing for a couple weeks now because of the pollution in India and now I am too. Its not the sandy desert I pictured, but rather a dirt desert. However, we enjoyed our stay in Jodhpur, nicknamed the blue city because the upper-caste Brahman residences are painted blue (check out the photo above). We spent most of the time at our hotel, but toured the red sandstone Mehrangarh Fort 1459 AD (pictured above) for a couple hours. In this fort, we saw the stained glass bedroom, a gallery of elephant seats, the pearl palace where political decisions were made by the men, but the women secretly listened from balconies where they could not be seen, an entertainment room for love, and more. Below is a video of the security guard wrapping up his turban, it starts out at 24- feet long!

The next day we went to one of the most opulent and largest palaces in Asia, the Umaid Bhawan Palace. It was built in the 40's as a "famine relief jobs project" and took 3,000 laborors 16 years to complete. Coincidently, it gave the rich Maharaja a fancy cream color sandstone palace with Art Decco decor. Today the royal family lives in one side and the other side is one of Leading Small Hotels of the World, the Taj Johdpur.

We really enjoyed our stay at Inn Season boutique hotel with fresh lime spritzers poolside. It was a nice way to be in Rajasthan, escaping the dirt. Being surrounded by green grass, gardens with chipmunks running around, parrots in the trees, and quality service letting us check out at 6pm with no extra charge!