The blue city

I had initially thought Jodhpur would just be a brief stop on the way to Jaisalmer ... but I'm so glad I'm spending two nights. What a lovely city!

When you look at the city from the rooftop, it's really blue. Supposedly, the blue comes from indigo, which is thought to be a mosquito repellent. Hmmm!

Speaking of mosquito's, I've been lucky so far, especially considering Delhi is having an outbreak of denge fever, not to mention the usual malaria. And (gulp), I've not taken any malaria pills (I'm just carrying them around). My arsenal has been ... souring my blood with grapefruit seed extract drops and my usual vitamin pill. I did pack nutritional yeast, but I just can't stomach that stuff. I've the usual Cutter's spray-on stuff and my secret weapon is these high-tech socks that are DEET impregnated. They're supposed to last for 25 washings (no problem with my laundry frequency). Knock on wood, something seems to be working. So far, I've only been zapped with a handful of bites mostly on my arms. Compared to a woman I was sitting across from at breakfast whose legs and feet were covered - she didn't have a spot of skin without huge welts.

Interestingly enough, in querying my fellow travelers (always a lively topic of conversation), few folks seem to be taking malaria pills ... not sure whether that's a good or bad thing!

After another delish breakfast, Irene and I hire a rickshaw and begin our sightseeing day!

First stop Meherangarh (pronounced meringue-gah). This is still run by the maharaja of Jodhpur and is gorgeous. The admission includes an audio-tour (yup, I was a bit skeptical about that), but how interesting and well done. The grounds, museum, architecture are in tip-top shape.

Near the exit is a palm reader ... how can I resist? Dear reader, do you really think I'm going to tell you everything he said on a public blog? I think not! For the watered down editorial ... it was fascinating and a wierdly spot on ... of course, time will tell about the future! He did all sorts of measurements and counts of the lines on my palm. He told me about my health, my finances, my work and love lives. Skeptically, it did seem he was telling all the westerners about our sensitive stomachs ... duh, that goes without saying here!

And for a sobering factoid about women ... particularly sobering in that it lasted until the mid-1900's. If a woman's husband died, she left the fort with his funeral procession, and placed her henna'd handprint near the entrance wall. She followed the procession to the funeral pyre, where she stoically joined her husband in the flames. Sounds like it paid to not outlive your husband.

Next stop ... Umaid Bhawan Palace. We take a quick look around and decide to opt for the restaurant instead ... a feast of kebab's, nan, milkshake, and lemonade. Yum! You guessed it, we made a bathroom stop on the way out ... they even had hand lotion (I'm in heaven)!

Lastly we stop at the Mandore gardens. This seems to be the place for locals to stroll around after work. But most interesting is the monkeys ... hundreds of monkeys. Unlike most of the animals in India, these are well fed, even plump, and we see different groups bringing them potatoes, bananas, corn, peanuts, and some sort of black thing about the size of a chestnut. I wonder if these monkeys are worshipped or revered for some reason or another. In asking one of the groups, they said they feed them every night.

What a lovely day! A stop for some sweets at the sweet shop (everyone wanted their picture taken), some shopping, and home to bed.