Jodhpur

Jodhpur

I have arrived in Jodhpur a mere 3 hours ago and i am already in love. this is the one city i wanted to visit in rajasthan and it has lived up to my imagination, the majority of the buildings here are all painted bright blue (google: steve mccurry jodhpur) and i feel like i am the middle of the book kite runner. we found a lovely little guest house, called the Comfy Guest House, painted blue of course and with the most incredible view of the meherangarh fort which is this massive complex built right onto and into this rocky cliff. and i have been so fortunate to get the 'penthouse suite' the room is tiny tiny tiny, the smallest room i think i have ever been in, just wide enough to fit a double bed with room enough to shuffle by to the bathroom, you sit on the toilet and your nose is against the wall in front of you. but there is one thing that makes up for it all, i have the best view in jodhpur, directly out of my front door, the moment i walk out and even when i am lying in bed i have the most spectacular view of the roof tops of jodhpur leading right to megerangarh fort, one of the nicest views i think i have ever seen, and it is literally my doorstep. jodhpur is probably about 150km from the pakistani border, and when i say i am in the middle of the book kite runner, i mean it. almost every other roof top i see has 1-3 kids on top all of their kites in the air, and wonderful sight to be seen. and all the buildings are blue. ill hopefully post up pictures soon from rishikesh and jodhpur(once i get out shooting here) and i should be able to frequently update as there is an internet cafe at my guest house, and a lovely roof top restaurant.

miss you all!

quinn

the one thing i don't like about traveling: meeting people, fellow travelers, that you really get along with and if you met back home, you would become the best of friends, you meet theses people and then they leave to continue their travels only a few hours after you have met. Jodhpur is incredible, i think this is my favorite city in india so far. i am staying in the old city which is the most vibrate, colorful and wonderful place i think i have ever been to. i woke up this morning and had my daily 'indian breakfast' which consists of a small pot of black coffee, peanut butter and jam toast and/or mango lassi, two fried eggs on toast and a bowl of banana honey porridge, for under £2. india is incredible. I then decided to take a wonder around the city, not having any form of direction or plan on where i was going, i just wondered, if i think a certain street looked intriguing, then i would walk down it, simple. i ended up in one of Jodhpur's more well own markets. and it is full of spice shops. the smells in this city are incredible. i met one indian man who owned one of the spice shops and he invited me in to have a cup of tea and a conversation, so i graciously accepted, had the best tea i have ever had, a great conversation which ended up leading me to an art school just around the corner, again i met the owner and one of his students and was invited for tea, which turned out to be a few and just had a wonderful time talking with these people and learning about there life and the culture of india. afterwards i decided to come back home for dinner and wound up spending the entire night with some travelers staying at my guest house. and they are some of the most wonderful people i have ever met in my life. there was one guy from sweden whom i just finished a few beers with after everyone had left and i am now meeting up with him tomorrow morning to go kite running, then i am going back to the art school and spice shop as i have been invited over again, afterwards i am meeting up with the swede and we are being taken to a shop by one of the men who owns our guest house to a shop that sells camel leather, maybe ill even ride a camel, to buy some nice cheap leather products. i also met tonight, a couple from vienna! the girl is from wien and her fiancee (they are going to get married here in india) who i from Bulgaria. i got a long with them amazingly and they are truly wonderful wonderful people and they were always on the same level with me on pretty well every subject and 'way of life'. if i had met them say, in london or vienna i think we would become fantastic friends, but of course, with the way of the traveler, they were off to catch a train this evening, so that is that. i also met two girls from london as well who where just as wonderful, but yet again, off to another place. i started off hating india, indians, indian food, everything. all i wanted to do was go home and get the hell out of this miserable country. now, i love it, every single bit of it. i dont want to leave and i now feel as if my trip is too short where as before i thought it was too long. this trip has really been an experience of a life time and i would not give it up for anything. it has allowed me to look deeper within myself then ever before and the really know what i am capable of, it has shown me things i thought only existed in the imagination and has allowed me to experience so many new and wonderful things. i am really having a wonderful time. for those of you traveling to india, i suggest making it over to jodhpur, i dont think i am leaving so i will see you here.

i miss you all!

quinn from jodhpur.


I am still in Jodhpur and probably will be until about tuesday, i have had the most incredible past few days. Well first of all alicia is horribly sick, throwing up, fever, the works, so jack and her have been pretty well bed ridden since we have been in jodhpur. on the other hand, i have been busy busy busy and having the time of my life, i will start with friday and work my way to now. I woke up around 7 am went down to my little rooftop restaurant to read my book and have breakfast which has become somewhat of a ritual for me here. Afterwards I decided to head back down to the clock tower market to meet up with the owner of the spice shop and the owner of the art school again to have some tea and a chit chat as well as to take photos down in the market. I spent a few hours down there and wondering around the old city but needed to be back by 3pm because Amed, the brother-in-law of the owner of this guest house, Joshi, was taking me and the swedish guy to a place to buy some nice camel leather products. we ended up going to a few different shops to find what we were looking for. i ended up walking out with a wonderful camel leather computer/messenger bag and a new wallet for under £9. Afterwards Amed decided to take us out into the middle of no where which turned out to be this incredible memorial/grave site for the maharajas of jodhpur which no one seems to know about. there wasnt a soul around for almost three hours until a few of ameds friends showed up to give us a ride back, one of whom is an art coordinator who worked on a huge photo shoot here in jodhpur with steve mccury for a sony advert. Once we arrived back home me and the swede had a couple of beers and decided that we are going to do a corporative article based around kite flying and kite running in jodhpur. Basically trying to start a new 'trend' here for backpackers. we are going to try and get the piece out to all the major travel guides and magazines and see what happens. the following day i had a bit of a sleep in until 9 30 and almost just at the moment i was getting out of bed, still in my underwear, Joshi comes knocking at my door asking if i want to go on a camel safari! he said that there are 4 other people going and they need one more person. so after a bit of discussion and me being able to knock the price down from 2000Rs to 1000Rs i agreed to go. The catch was i had 15 minutes to shower and get ready because everyone else was already in the jeep on the outskirts of town and i needed to catch up. I quickly got ready and packed up my things and camera equipment and hurried down stairs where i was greeted by Amed, he was to take me to the jeep. i figured we would be taking a rickshaw but instead i hopped on the back of Ameds motorcycle and off we went into the middle of the hell that is indian traffic. great fun tho and we made up for a lot of lost time. i meet up with the others ( three scottish girls and one guy from england) at a petrol station on the outskirts of jodhpur. we needed to take a 1.5 hour jeep ride out into the middle of no where to meet up with our camels. and that was the start of my favorite day in india to date. the camel safari was incredible. we each had a our own camel, mine had a bit of a temper issue and i was almost bucked off a few times but i held my ground, or held my camel, and way able to stay on. from there we rode off into the desert. The first leg of the journey was about 2 hours and we stopped at this little hut in the middle of the desert where our guide's daughter had prepared lunch for all of us. it was one of the best thali's ive had in india so far. after lunch we took a bit of a break to sooth out sun burnt limbs and bruised butt cheeks, as well to get out of the blazing rajasthani desert heat. after a bit of a break we where off on the camels again. this leg of the journey was about 4 hours wondering thru the desert and occasionally passing buy herds of sheep and goats, plenty of peacocks and the odd gazelle. at the end of the safari we climbed up this massive dune on our camels to where we had the most spectacular view over the desert to watch the sunset and eat dinner. really amazing and i have plenty of photos now to edit and some of my best ones i think i have shot in india so far. After dinner and a bit of a rest on the dunes, we took the jeep back to our guest house which was the bumpiest 2 and a half hours of my life, i hit my head on the top of the jeep so many times i now have a nice big bump on the crown of my head. once we arrived back at the guest house we all went off to shower and get all the sand off and me and the scottish girls met up in the restaurant to have dinner and a few beers, we ended up staying well past closing until around 2 am and then finally went off to bed. this morning i woke up with the worst sunburn i have ever had (the worst is my knees because that is the one spot i forgot to put sun screen on) and one hell of a sore/bruised ass. basically everything is aching and bruised, i am walking like an old man today. but it was all worth it because i had one of the best days of my life and have great photos to show for it. i hope everyone is well back home and i shall see you all soon!

quinn