Jodhpur & the best fort ever

After our visit to the Taj, we made it back to Delhi for another night before heading west into Rajasthan to the town of Jodhpur. Jodhpur's claim to fame is that it's a blue city and that it was. So lovely!

We stayed in a haveli, which in the past was someone's mansion, but was now converted into a hotel. It was really neat with tiny little stairways heading in all directions, cool architectural details, and an awesome rooftop patio/bar/restaurant that overlooked the city. We took every opportunity to tell hotels we were honeymooners in the hopes of upgrades/goodies and this place came through! We got a cool room with a nice nook for reading/people watching and some colorful murals. They also gave us some nice flower necklaces (for lack of a better word..). Here we are happy to have arrived to our room and be in AC.. Johdpur was also quite hot (shocking, I know!).

Partaking in the best sport of them all- People Watching

 In Jodhpur, we spent a few days wandering the winding little streets of this cool city and checking out the markets. Rajasthan is famous for it's colorful fabrics, so we did some shopping which included hardcore haggling (I mean HARDCORE- back and forth, back and forth, throw some hands in the air, then go back and forth some more). Eventually they wore us down and we could haggle no more (and that's saying something- I love a good deal!) and we walked away with some colorful tablecloths, wall hangings and bedspreads at an only slightly inflated tourist price as opposed to the ridiculously inflated tourist price they began with.

Fabric/Rug/Bedding/Everything Store..

Market in the middle of the town

Aside from the blueness of the city, the main draw of Jodhpur was it's fort. The visit to the Mehrangarh fort was a highlight of the trip for sure and sent my imagination into a whirlwind. I can only imagine what it must have been like to live in the fort during it's heyday. We got to tour nearly all of the fort unattended and see elaborate room after elaborate room, along with other pieces of it's history (gilded cribs, ridiculously curved swords and some crazy palanquins). Oh how wonderful it must have been to be a Maharaja back then.. On your next trip to India, I would  recommend making a stop at Mehrangarh Fort. Heat and all, I'd go back.

Here are some pictures from the fort. They don't do it justice, but still they're pretty cool.

Entering the gates- this was the view up.

Hand prints of women who killed themselves when their spouses died in war. Sorry Dougie, I won't be doing that..

We were kind of hoping we'd get a ride in one of these

Acting the part..

Super cool honeycomb everywhere

Reception room- theme for our next home

Past Maharajas of the fort

Crib fit for a king. Complete with plenty of metal pointy things.

Smaller fort/monument outside the big fort. Amazing!

Then we went to a palace.. This city was loaded!

So this is some of India. I've really fallen behind in the world of blogging, so readers everywhere will have to settle for two weeks in sweltering heat squeezed into a few posts. India was hot, smelly and so different. But man, we ate some delicious street food and saw crazy things (example: elephant walking on main highway on the way to the airport). It was a bit of a challenge for even the seasoned traveler, but I'm so glad we went!