I arrived in Jodhpur on Saturday after our first bus journey of this trip. In the afternoon we all opted to do a Safari which involved visited rural families and tribes to see how they live in India.

Our first stop was to the Bishno tribe. The Bishno tribe follow a rule of 29 principles and is was Bishno means. The men of these families wear white clothes whilst the women wear brightly coloured garments to attract others to join their tribe. They live a very provincial life and have a licence to have opium as it is part of their culture and religion. The man that we visited was hillarious and was obviosly completely high, we felt sorry for his wife as it was obvious that she did all of the work around the place. Here we witnissed an opium ceremony and then invited to try some ourselves. I was actually suprised how nice the opium tasted but don't worry mum their wasn't enough in there to do anything. It's traditional in the ceremony to offer the god the opium three times and then go around the circle each taking the opium from the hosts hand three times. It was a really interesting experience.

Our second stop was to a tradition derry maker. Here they made the most beautiful rugs. Unfortunately my camera died of heat exhaustion at the moment where the man showed us all of the rugs so I only have images of the demonstration of the derry weaving. It's a facinating process with rugs taking between 1-3 months to complete depending on the size and intricacy of the pattern. None of us could actually beleive how cheap the rugs were considering the detail of work that went into them. We were also amazing when the man pulled out his portfolio showing us the various magazines that his work has been in and also the celebrities that have visited their quaint settlement, they included the smashing pumpkins, Richard Gere and Price Charles!

Next we went to watch some traditional pottery and clay making but this was pretty much the same techniques that we use in England so it wasn't very special.

Our final stop was to a traditional shephard family where the women were forbidden top show their faces. I really enjoyed this trip as I was able to see another side to India.

My second day in Jodhpur was the hottest day that we've had! It was ridiculous. We firstly visted was the Cenotaph which is a memorial which a Kings wife built once he died as a memorial for him and was subsequently cremated at this point. To this day this all royals are cremated here. This was such a beautiful and peacefull building that it took all of our strenghth to move so that we could go and visit the fort in Jodphur which is apparently the best maintained fort in India. This was a lovely fort but it was so hot that we were unable to enjoy the beauty of it properly. I am glad though that I was able to see actual suti hand prints of the wifes that had ascrificed themselves for their husband and also the view from the fort showed me why Jodphur is called the blue city.

As previously stated this was a ridiculously hot day so you guessed it the afternoon was indeed spent in the pool!