Feb. 10th, 2007: In today's news, there is a front page colour photo in the Hindustan Times, showing the foot and a half blanket of snow covering Simla. When we were there, we had temps in the 60's and they'd had no snow during the winter, same as at home in Saratoga. Highly unusual in both cases. The other weather news was a complete summary of weather conditions throughout the nation - yesterday's weather, no forecast. Also, traffic was brought to a standstill in Delhi because of rain and there were frequent blackouts. An electric utility spokesman explained the power outages as being caused by "moisture in the air." The only other news of note was that about 800 cops in Kerala State were written up for a variety of no-no's, including rape, murder, torture, sexual abuse, that sort of misdemeanour. I privately hoped that the "writing up" would show these bad boys the evil of their ways.
Were getting a little rain in Jodhpur ourselves. This is the Blue City, with many houses painted that hue. The reasons for this are either 1) blue is the colour of the Brahmins, the highest caste and everyone wanted to suggest that they were high class dudes or 2) a blue wash was believed effective in keeping mosquitoes away.
The 700 year old Mehrangarh Fort rises above Jodhpur on a 410 foot rock and is the most flamboyantly decorated fort in Rajasthan. The rich detail in every one of the rooms of the Royal Apartment give you an idea of just how wealthy the wealthy were.The Blob Sisters stayed in the bus after taking a look at the daunting anti-gravitational effort required to see the Fort.
Lunch was at the Umaid Bhavan Palace, a spectacularly gorgeous modern structure built in 1929 by an Indian Prince and sporting 347 rooms, including 8 dining halls and a vast underground swimming pool. The owner, Maharajah Umaid Singh commissioned it to provide work for his famine-stricken subjects and it took 3,000 men working for 15 years to complete it. They were working on Indian Time, of course (soon come, Sahib), but nonetheless...
Back at the Palace on Wheels, I'm feeling a little dodgy at dinner and spend the night in the bathroom of our stateroom. The dreaded Delhi Belly has struck. No sleep, so I stay in bed while Max gets up at an ungodly hour the next day to take a cold, bumpy jeep trip into the Tiger Sanctuary, but no tiger is seen.
We both skip the excursion into Chittagarh that afternoon, and reports from the returning tour members are mediocre, so we don't feel too bad. Tomorrow is Udaipur.
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