Forts and Tombs - Final Installment

Excerpts from the Week Away (Part 3):

10/25/12 Jodphur

It’s 6:45 a.m.  We just arrived in Jodhpur on the overnight bus.  A small trek, following our auto drivers through narrow alleyways filled with waking residents, cows, and trash, brought us to Our Hostel on a Hill – the Cosy Guesthouse.  Climbing to the small room where our luggage can sit until check-in, we watch the sunrise over the magnificence of the Blue City. 

I climbed down one flight of stairs for a little solitude and sat by a bright blue wall with the orange-pink sunrise still rising over the sandstone fortress that sits high above the city, a little white temple at its peak meeting the bright sun.  Colors glow and merge into a burst of brightness.  The Blue City awes instantly.  A maze of buildings and colors, of old and winding, it shines in the morning sun.

(Ok, I tear myself away from the sunrise imagery.)

P.S. The bus was FREEZING in the desert night.  The roads bumped so hard I’m pretty sure the bus caught air.  The rural and mountainous shadows caught my eye.  The moon shone.  Sleep was limited.

Other memories: Educating Dave on the topics of Julia Child and Little Women. Dust-coated lungs. So much laughter and smiles.  Feeling friendship.  Talk of love and life, what has been and what could be. Did I mention laughter?

 And now the sun has finally, suddenly, positioned itself above the fort.  It feels warm on my tired face and I am oh so wearily blissful…  

 

The Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur was intricate and foreboding, as it should be.  The puzzle of this city – blue and pink and green and blue pieced together on the mounting hillside – is a wonder in itself.  The fort above it sits as its crown.

Walking through the alleyways and markets: cows, goats, and dogs; children playing and goat tending; candy making, repairs, and metal working; daily life bought, sold, and cherished – all under the bright colors and sun.

Tonight the city glimmered beneath a luminous moon and twinkling stars, its lights below shining as if it were a part of the skyscape.  Sleep comes early in this beautiful, antique, blue city.

10/28/12

Home sweet Hyderabad.

We arrived around 11 p.m. and life settled back in to normalcy quickly. Sigh.

But. Let’s finish reveling in vacation:

Our last day in Jodhpur began with an elephant inches from our auto as we rattled our way through the alleys of the city to the palace of the Maharajah.  Kulfi for breakfast on the palace grounds was a treat.  Gardens, peacock, parrots, squipmunks.  A cow gently horning Karolle as he nudged by her in the narrow road. 

Sunset and beer on the hostel roof taking in the “killing view” (as the hostel boasts) one last time.  The day ended with the five of us and our luggage squeezing into one auto to catch the bus.  On our way, the auto stopped (OMG, will we make the bus?!) to change a tire and add air to the others.  “It has a new balance,” the driver tells us as we go the 50 meters to just catch our night bus to Delhi.

Last day in Delhi: Qutub Minar, chilling, coffee.  

 Hannah and I found froyo – don’t tell Yasmin! – and samosas as we wandered around shops in Delhi’s fancy-cosmo-place. 

(btw, Delhi subway at rush hour = my Indian nightmare come true.  Too close, too many men, too much discomfort!) Subway, auto-arguing, cab-grabbing just got us to the plane in time.  (Ok, I know I am a compulsively early airport arriver, but seriously we only just made it.) Exhaustion!

My fellow voyagers and I were a good group.  Equal amounts decisiveness and easygoing, confrontation and peacemaking, group time and independence. 

Lovely.

Travel group, minus Zuha and me

 

(Final thought: North Indian food was good – I had my share of breads and very little rice! – but it is nice to have a little spice back in my life again.  There’s nothing quite like burning lips after lunch.)

(Click pics to make big. More pics currently on Facebook, also.)