Sunday April 19 - Mehrangarh Fort

This morning we left Pushkar (population 846,408) to journey to Jodpur. As we drove, the landscape became more rocky, the towns less populated, and the roads better. Jodpur was founded in 1459 and it's growth and development was financed by the opium trade, sandalwood, dates, and copper. The town is dominated by Meherangarh, a large fort that sits atop a rock overlooking the Brahmin-blue houses of the old city below. Like most of the other cities we have seen it is busy, dirty, and smelly. We parked the Truck at the Durag Niwas Guest House, a small guest house by the gates of Old Public Park where we had a lovely lunch before we visited the Fort.

We did an audio tour of the fort which was brilliant as the narrator although Indian spoke with the most perfect British accent and we could understand. Most of our guides so far have purported to speak English, but it has been very hard if not impossible to understand them. I am surprised at how poorly English is spoken here, and I saw a newspaper article in Mumbai which indicated that the government is aware of the huge need for people to speak better English if India is to complete on the world stage.

I loved the Fort. It was started in 1459 and the impressive external architecture envelops maginificantly decorated rooms, and a wonderful collection of palanquins, elephant howdahs, weapons, paintings, and turbans. The views over the Blue City are marvellous, and the discussion on the audio tour by the current maharaja in his Oxford perfect Engish made it all so personal.

In the late afternoon, we reluctantly walked down the steep narrow lane leading from the fort to the Sardar Market and the clock tower, and after being harrassed by enough vendors and beggars, we climbed in to an autorickshaw and went back to pick up the Truck.

Tonight was another bush camp, however, the owner of the Guest House suggested that where we planned to camp was not safe and offered us his land to camp on in a rural community. The story is that his grand father's family farmed the land in a rural community. Five of the 6 brothers remained on the land to farm it and his grandfather, the 6th brother went to the city to help out with supporting the famiy and that is how the Guest House was started. He sent one of his employees with us and we drove about 2 hrs out of the city of Jodpur and into the flat rocky-sandy wilderness of the Thar Desert towards Pakistan. The road was excellent and we passed tons of Indian army vehicles and troops on the way to the border. The border is highly guarded, fully fenced, and they take no chances on allowing the wrong people through. We also saw many windmill farms which provide the energy to support the lighting along the fence at the border.

It was dark when we turned off the main road onto a narrow lane and eventually off that to drive across the sand to the community of 6 houses. People sleep on the roof here, so we elected to do the same instead of pitching our tent. Being part of cook group I started preparing dinner immediately. It was a magical night under the stars, and we even managed to contact Alanna by phone from this remote spot on our Vodophone Indian mobile SIM.