Apr 06 2009

Jodhpur's Bolly(NOT)good Restaurant

Well we found Bollygood and went to eat there last night, all expectant of a good time, maybe LCD's would be playing Bollywood music videos, or maybe just some music, maybe waiters and waitresses (do they exist in India?) dressed in a Bollywood-stylee.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It wasn't air-conned, although it had fans, but they didn't really work very well. It had large pictures of a few Bollywood stars in between the eating tables but other than that it was very plain indeed.

We ordered our meal with Jane and the girls going for spag bol and chicken maryland so they could avoid the spice. Me on the other hand, still not feeling great, launched into a Chicken Dopiaza. Mine arrived and I tucked in before it went cold; very tasty, bit spicy but not too bad; I'd eaten it all before theirs arrived. Theirs arrived, they tucked in and I watched their faces turn from pink to red in a few uneasy mouthfuls. Amy's spag bol turned out to have the heat of a Madras, if not a Vindaloo, back home but she's really a Korma girl so she did well to even managed eating a third of it. The same thing happened with Jane and Emilia. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it.

So for us Bollygood turned out to be Bollybad. That's just for us mind, everyone's different.

To cap it all I couldn't find a tuk-tuk for 5 minutes outside and although our hotel is only 10 minutes walk away I didn't fancy it, so dark, so late. A tuk-tuk was finally flagged down, he spoke a little English but couldn't understand 'Ratan Vilas please'. A couple of passers-by tried to help to no avail. I thought I knew where the hotel was so I directed him. Thankfully we arrived to sounds of 'Ah Ratan Vilas. Yes I know Ratan Vilas'. Really.I paid him 50 rupees anyway as I was just glad to get back to the hotel; it was probably 5 times the actual rate.

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Apr 05 2009

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur - by Kev

I keep waking up at 5am but today I'm not bothered as I'm excited to see possibly the best fort in Rajasthan, if not India, Mehrangarh in Jodhpur.

A lazy breakfast later and at 10am Kamal is ready to take us to Mehrangarh, it's already very hot. Mehrangarh dominates the skyline here and the closer you get the more impressive it gets

 

We toured the fort for 3.5 hours, which is a record for me as I normally get bored after 1.5 or 2 hours. I've come to the conclusion that this will always be one of my favourite places to visit, surpassing perhaps even the Taj Mahal.

 

The sheer size of the thing is impressive from far or near, but the real beauty, just like that Taj Mahal, can only be seen close up.

 

I don't think I've read how long the fort took to build but it must have been years and years as the carving in virtually every sandstone wall is exquisite.

 

The coloured glass work was very beautiful within the dark rooms with the sunlight flooding through the glass.

 

We hadn't even realised that there wasn't a hawker or seller in sight, no hassle, whatsoever: are we still in India?

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Apr 05 2009

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur - by Emilia

At 8:00 in the morning, I quickly got woken up by someone tapping their feet on my bed, even though I was extremely tired. Later, I got in the car; I then went up the long windy road to Mehrangarh Fort.

When we got into the fort I hired an audio guide; it was useful, explaining all the things we were looking at. Once we were in the first courtyard I noticed that the floor was not made of bricks but of marble, inlaid with gems; it was quite shiny and glimmered in the sunlight.

We explored round the Mehrangarh Fort, my family and I found out that elephants would try to attack however they would never be able to get in because there were long spikes on the door inline with the elephants head. Disgusting.

After the tour, which we did in three and a half hours, we went into the fort's shop and out the other side to find some market sellers there. I bought a really lovely lightweight scarf/stole which is very beautiful, dyed in blue and green.

Today I had a great day.

 

Emilia.

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Apr 05 2009

Our Best Hotel Yet

After a very hot journey yesterday we arrived in Jodhpur our final hotel with Namaste India Tours. (The car is air conditioned by the way but it just can't cope with the heat).

Our hotel, Ratan Vilas is an old heritage building and we've got a suite room here, it's about the size of the downstairs of my house!

It's a really beautiful hotel and the courtyard where we had dinner last night is lovely; food was good too and only cost £10 for three of us as Jane wasn't eating. 

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Apr 04 2009

Pushkar to Jodhpur

Awake at 5am, not my choice let's just blame Hotel Saket's restaurant, I waited an hour before I ventured out of the room onto Green Park Resort's open airy corridors and did 30 minutes of peafowl spotting, viewing 5 of them on the roof of a nearby hotel.

I spent one hour of removing Bharatpur's cyber cafe trojan horses - thanks a lot :-( - some blog updating and email stuff before the router died a horrible death I took the kids for breakfast. Jane and I weren't eating (refer back to Hotel Saket comment) but the kids as usual were unstoppable in consumption of banana, and this time nutella, pancakes.

So we leave for Jodhpur with a very poorly Jane in the back seat wondering how she'll cope with 5 hours in a hot car. She got through it though.

It seemed that Kamal was either lost or taking a shortcut unknown to anyone else - I suspect the latter -but we had to stop to wait for the train to pass at Pipar Road Junction, in the middle of nowhere. Got out of the car and I spoke to some of the local men while Emiled smiled with some local girls. I suspect that they'd rarely seen, or maybe even never seen, western children as young as ours as they seemed very inquisitive although somewhat shy. 

As the train pulls out from the nearby station it seemed that everyone aboard wanted their photo taken. I oblige and realise that frames per second is worth worrying about when buying a new SLR: I hadn't done. I really enjoyed this experience. Real India, real people.

 

Five very hot travellers arrive in Jodhpur, 240 kms and 4.5 hours travel; it's time for lunch as it's already 2:15pm.

A rest (and a sleep for the older ones) later and we go out for a walk in Ratanada, the area surrounding our hotel. We're on the look out for the restaurant named Bollygood which sounds fun. Rough Guide's map is hopelessly inaccurate so we return and ask the hotel where the restaurant is. The point out the location on the map and second the recommendations I'd got from Rough Guide and people from IndiaMike.

Tonight we dined in the hotels' courtyard. Feeling slightly poorly didn't dissuade me from try their mixed tandoori platter which was served with a sublime mint sauce. Internet connection seems good so some more blogging has to be done to appease those critical of the recent lack of updates - although I can't image they're that bothered.

 

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