Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
so we got the bus from Pushkar to Jodhpur at 7.00am - we got up at 5.30 to walk to the bus station. The bus was terrible - the road was worse! We would be going along, bouncing around on our seats, picking up lots of people along the way. Sometimes the road would run out, and we would just be driving along sand!!! We were sitting in the back seat with our backpacks in front of us so we didnt have to put them in the hold as the guy was trying to charge us an extra 10 rupees for a piece of luggage - we'd already paid for our ticket so we said no! I was squashed in the corner of the back seat, away from all the starers... there are a hell of a lot of those in India! Every person that got on the bus wanted to talk to Jack. A couple of school kids got on, and Jack had to read to them from their English school books! Then there was a guy who was a policeman, and he was asking us if we were married, why not, do we have more than one boyfriend/girlfriend, do we sleep in the same bed, what contraception do we use...!!! It was all a bit strange, but they dont have boyfriends or girlfriends here, they have arranged marriages, so for us to have been a couple for 4 and a half years but not yet married is completely alien to them.
We eventually arrived in Jodhpur early afternoon. When the bus stopped, we were targeted by about 25 rickshaw drivers! We were the last people off the bus, and they were swarming around the door trying to get us to go with them (probably to a hotel of their choice so that they get commission!). There were so many, i actually had to tell them to move so that i could get off the bus! It was really intense, and they were relentless, shouting in our faces, 5 rupees!! Which is too good to be true, you don't go anywhere for 5 rupees without looking at 5 hotels and a few shops where they get commission! We were on a bridge, so we decided to walk away from them and go down the stairs where they couldn't follow us. We were wrong. After a couple of minutes peace, they had gone down the road and under the bridge and we had a line of rickshaw's following us! they all jumped out and crowded us again. I told them to give us space while i looked at our guide book to see if it was possible to walk. It wasn't, it was too far and i looked up to say this to Jack, and all the drivers were in a line, leaning forward, straining their ears to hear what i was going to say! It was hilarous! We told them all that we wanted to go straight to the clock tower (where we knew it was only walking distance to a number of hotels) and we got a rickshaw for 20 rupees. Which was still really cheap, but he kept to his word and dropped us off there.
We found a cheap guesthouse for 250 rupees a night. We had a sleep in the afternoon, then tried to go for a walk. Jodhpur is so congested and dusty it was difficult to breathe walking down the road so we just headed back to our hotel - our eyes were bloodshot the whole time we were there. We wanted to have a shower, but it didn't work. There was a tap that was about waist height so we had to crouch under that instead! It worked just as well, even if it was a bit uncomfortable! Obviously after that it was 'i'm just going for a tap' every time we wanted a shower!
The next day we got up late and went to a different guesthouse for breakfast/lunch. We'd planned to go to the fort (which actually looked really impressive from outside) but we got talking to an English couple called Bob and Helen, and we stayed in the restaurant for 5 hours!! We weren't too bothered about missing the sightseeing because it was difficult to get around anyway. We went home to have a 'tap' then went back out to meet Bob and Helen for dinner which was nice. We didn't see/do a lot in Jodhpur, but had a nice time talking to some people! We booked a bus for the next day to head to Udaipur, which we had heard is really nice.
- comments