Day 18 -Jodhpur - Thursday 3rd November 2011

Somewhat surprisingly, our train actually arrived early into Jodhpur. This took us by complete surprise and we were woken up by the train conductor telling us to get off as everyone else had left the train!

Given that our check-in time for Heaven guest house was 12pm, we were a little bit worried that we wouldn't be allowed in. But Nisha was more than welcoming and gave us her bedroom to sleep in until our room was ready.

After a bit of food and chai on the rooftop, that has a great view overlooking the Fort, we went out for a stroll around the town and ended up in a restaurant overlooking the market and clock tower. We sat on the rooftop for hours, eating, drinking chai and reading our books before finally retreating back to our guesthouse for some well-deserved sleep.

Day 19 -Jodhpur - Friday 4th November 2011

Today we headed for Jodhpur fort and although Adam, as he puts it, is a bit Fort'ed out, this one was actually one of the best we've been to so far. It was a fair walk to the front gate, as the fort is semi-carved out of the mountain. It almost rises from the rocks - if that makes sense?! We had an audio guide and it was interesting to learn about the history of the fort, small things like… every fort door or entrance is on a right angle. This is because when enemies' were trying to invade the fort, they used to use elephants to charge the gates and so the fort gates being at right angle prevented the elephants gathering up enough speed to penetrate the gate - hence the badies were kept out!! Why they didn't just set the gates on fire must remain a mystery to me as they were made out of wood?!! Also, at the entrance of the fort lay 2 sets of handprints which are the sati marks of the royal widows who threw themselves on their husbands funeral pyres (sati is the name used for widows who commit suicide by basically throwing themselves onto the burning bodies of their husbands - unsurprisingly this is now banned in India). The view from the fort was remarkable and the blue city really is blue!

In the evening, we strolled to a restaurant which apparently had the best veggie food in town and evening entertainment of dancing and singing. The service was pretty appalling and the food not much better and so after a quick dinner, and only 2 dances, we left and walked to the clock tower market. Once there, we found a little egg shop owned by a guy called Vicky and had 2 spiced boiled eggs - they were tasty! Vicky was a lovely man too - he'd started his business when he was just 11 and had the best and whitest teeth I've ever seen on an Indian man!

After our eggs and a saffron lassi, we wandered back to our guest house but not before stopping to buy some Indian sweets. Adam picked out 3 different types of sweets and then asked how much - 30 rs came the answer. Now we thought this sounded ok, this was until the Indian man standing next to Adam burst into fits of laughter. Literally he couldn't stop and was laughing so much he had to walk away! It seems we were being ripped off! Oh well, they tasted good and worked out as only 40p so we're not complaining………