Jodhpur

We arrived in Jodhpur late at night, so just grabbed some dinner on the rooftop hotel restaurant, and went to bed. In the morning I went to the roof to check out the view....

Jodhpur fort is pretty impressive and standing on the walls, you can certainly understand how the fort never fell. 

Our first job of the day was the one that nearly broke us; buying a train ticket to Jaisalmer. It took us 30 minutes in a tuktuk through tight, beep infested streets to get to the station. Once there we struggled with one queue, before being told we needed a different window and different queue, and then started again. This happened over and over for about 40 minutes before being informed we needed our passports.

This was not what we wanted to hear.

We tried to find a coffee shop to regroup, then failing this, just gave up and tuktuked back to the hotel, got the passports, then tuktuked back to the station. 

And then we were told there were no more tourist seats on trains.... For 2 weeks.

Silent anguish ripped through me. Less-silent and more vocal anguish erupted from Jane. A supervisor was called. And then finally someone agreed to put us on a train.... That night.

So now being midday, and mentally scarred, we set off to see the fort. 

It was great.

We went and got dinner. Again great.

And then we stumbled upon a festival in a local community and when we were spotted standing at the back, we got pulled to some chairs at the front next to the local mayor. 

This was incredible. What struck me though was the separation of rich (who danced, acted, and sat in the main area, all the while wearing elaborate costumes), and poor (who watched on from behind a rope).

Even at this event for children and their watchful parents, the rich participated and the poor watched on.

We jumped aboard the night train for Jaisalmer with plenty to think about.

Chris