Mother and Son Make The World Their Classroom for a School Year: April 1, 2015 (Jodhpur, India)

My only April Fools joke I played was on Sam telling him that we were extending our trip to Russia after India. He looked at me and I could tell there was a lot going through his mind. I couldn’t hold out for very long- April Fools! He was like- really? I think he is expecting me to say that any day, but I will be ready to go home in 11 days. It has been awesome but I am ready to come home and regroup. Also I am ready to get off the Malarone. Have been on it for over 2 months and it is making me a little fuzzy.

This morning we pulled into Jodhpur. We choose to take the morning easy. Wanted to make sure that Sam got plenty of rest with his knee being swollen and we have been going. Sam slept in and I got caught up on photos. The interent is very slow here and so it takes forever to upload pictures to our blogs. I organized a private tour for us today so we wouldn’t have as much standing around at the fort for the tour and we could get off earlier than the rest of the group. We left at 1:30 for the Umaid Bhawan Palace, Mehrangarh Fort and Maharaja cremation memorial sites. We had a friendly guide named Goldy- clearly a name that is used for tourists since his real name was about 6 syllables and he was right, there was no way I could pronounce it. First stop was the palace which come to find out is a Taj hotel. Part of the Palace which was built in the 1930s is still occupied by the Maharaja and his family. The main part of the palace is used as a hotel with it’s grounds and is spectacular. We were able to get into the hotel with special permission and it was gorgeous. It was like Emirates Palace but without the gold and beautiful pink sandstone carvings and domes and stone work. I would definitely come back to Jodhpur even to just stay at the hotel. I dipped into their clothing shop they had and found some beautiful items made especially for this hotel, part of the Maharaja family designs. LOVE the tunics I purchased there.

We visited next the place just below the Fort where the Maharajas were cremated. On the site of the pyre’s- stack of wood which someone is cremated on- they have built a marble stand and almost shrine like memorial in remembrance of the royal. When they are cremated their head is always placed north- pointing towards where “heaven” is which is the Himalayas- where the Ganges originates. The ashes then are taken to Varanasi and put in the Ganges there. Cremation is part of returning the body back to it’s 5 elements:earth, wind, air, water, fire.

We made our way up the mountain to the Mehrangarh Fort. t was huge, once again. It had a monster sandstone wall around the city that was 10 km long and the fort looked like it was coming out of the rocks. It had been a palace until the early 20th century when the royal family built the current Umaid Bhawan Palace which we visited earlier. There we strolled through many rooms and a display of art work that this area is known for that is painted with a single hair of a squirrel and has incredible detail. We saw some of the most beautiful red sandstone screen work and carvings that we have seen in the upper balconies of courtyards which were for women, since it was the custom for them not to be seen by the public. From the fort it had a fantastic view of the city and all the blue homes. The homes were painted blue originally for Brahmes, the upper caste, to mark which were there home to keep the untouchables from coming to their homes. They likely chose this color of indigo mixed with lyme since it keeps the insects away- don't like the fragrance of this paint and also because blue and white reflect the sunlight and keeps the home cooler. This original Maharaja that built the fort was able to see which of the homes belonged to his holy men, the priest cast of the Brahmes. These Maharajas were Hindu in this area.

We took a tuk tuk through the marketplaces which the area is known for and then enjoyed a nice ride to a smaller palace outside the larger palace. This home was built for one of the Prince’s ladies, and i believe it was a wife,who was from another caste and hence she had been allowed to live in the main palace.Sam and I hung out for a bit until the rest of the group arrived. We played cards and enjoyed the sunsetting. We tried to learn how to use the pieces of wood that the performers use to make clacking sounds. It was so hard, we couldn’t figure it out. When everyone arrived we had a puppet show, a tradition in these parts. We purchase a small patchwork puppet too as a keepsake. It was a more interesting and entertaining show, only second to Vietnam’s water puppet show.

Dinner Sam and i joined a couple from Paris and Czech Republic. They were interesting and told us about their travels and their recent trip on the Orient Express from Bangkok to Singapore. It sounded more like the Rovos Rail with a more glamorous train but again not all the interesting stops. And they said that it was more rocky and shaky than this train, which is hard to believe. ,We both agreed though what makes this train experience incredible are the organized activities in the incredible venues and being spoiled to no end with performances and locations for dinner and sundowners.