13th February, Jodphur and Pushkar

From Jaisalmer we went to Jodhpur, back to the hustle and noise of a major city. We've had our defenition of small and big cities slightly adjusted, normally I would have called all the places we have been to for big! We quite enjoyed walking around in the old part of town: Small markets with big selection, deep fried yummyness and all kinds of people. In a small, hidden away textile shop we actually met the man who showed the crown prince and crown princesses of Norway around Jodphur when they were here a month ago. What are the odds!? We also went to the the massive fort overlooking the town. The veiw was amazing. We could see the residence of the current maharaja (kind) of Jophur and got a good understanding of why it's called "The Blue City".

We we're given audio guides. They were good but made us feel very touristy..

 

The last 3 days we've been exploring Pushkar. We extended our stay for a day longer, the smaller cities seem to appeal more to us! This is a holy city for Hindues, no alcohol, drugs, meat or eggs is allowed. Its centered around a lake and ghats (steps) lead down from the temples surrownding it. As I'm sitting on our hotels rooftop terrace having chai I can gaze down on bathing pilgrims and prayingsessions. The city is surrownded by mountains and has a great feeling to it. It's more quite, partly because cars aren't allowed in the city center. There is a lot of tourist here, but not the buss loads of people that load off, take photoes and load on. It has a very laid back, hippie like style. Yet again, different from everything we have seen so far in India. It sure makes us miss the real back packer style, visiting Rose from Holland in her roof top tent for 80 rupies (10 kroner) a night, I would have traded in my big, clean hotel room in a second! Mind, we'll be doing the pack packer thing for the next 5 months so we are enjoying the opportunity of a little upper class accomadation.

Pushkar from "sunset point" where people would gather on the steps leading down to the holy lake to watch the sun dissapear in the horizon.

A wedding party walking through the streets of Pushkar. These colourful women followed a marching band, making quite a racket. This is "wedding season" in India, because this is a very good time to get married (based on horoscopes). We kept seing wedding celebrations everywhere!

Yesterday Kerry, a new friend we met at our hotel, took us out to see the monkeys right outside town. We bought bananas and carrots (way too much with though initially) and pulled over by the road. As the first bananan was opened monkeys were jumping onto our open car, reaching their soft hands out for a piece. Some even ate straight out of our hands, others were more cheeky and tried to run of with the whole bag. Getting over our initial fright we enjoyed it so much!