Jodhpur – Of magnificent forts, incredible food & rich history

Me & my family embarked on a week long trip to the most Royal of all states (provinces) of India – Rajasthan. I hadn’t expected much, apart from the ever popular forts & deserts. What transpired was beyond my imagination, and I want to jot down my experiences in this wonderful North western state of India. This blog is first of the three part travelogue – First up was Jodhpur – the blue city.

Our Indigo airlines flight landed at Jodhpur at 8:55am, a full 45 mins ahead of schedule. We met Surender-ji, our very hospitable driver for this entire trip, booked via a travel company. Food is quite popular in this part of the world, so we asked our driver to take us to some good place to have breakfast, the first words out of his mouth when he called someone to check for suitable eatery was “Khamma Ghani Hukum“, loosely translated to “Greetings respected sir”, we had well and truly arrived in Rajasthan :-). As we drove around this city, one unique thing we observed here was the continuous line up of sweet shops, all open in the morning, with people busy digging into jalebi & Kachoris and other savories for breakfast. Wherever I travel, I like to dine & wine like the locals, for I take the “When in Rome, do what the romans do” proverb quite seriously. We tried out the yummy looking (Lentils) Kachori and Mirchi Bada (Chilly Fry, a Jodhpur special snack). Both were incredible, so delicious! Mirchi Bada was probably the best Mirchi Bada we ever had in our life, with great spicy & tangy filling. The guy at the Jalebi counter kept churning out fresh Jalebi’s, it was so inviting that we bought 100 gms (5-6 Jalebis). It was also very good, all together it costed Rs.70/-, great start to our trip we thought.

There was a lot of history & geography lessons during our drive to our hotel. Surender-ji gave us a quick introduction of the 4 major belts of Rajasthan. Marwar belt comprising mainly cities of Jodhpur & Jaisalmer, a desert terrain, relied primarily on Camel for transport. Mewar belt comprising of Udaipur & Chittorgarh, a hilly terrain, relied on Horse for transport. Shekawati belt comprising area around Jaipur, a semi-arid terrain, relied on Elephant for transport. All these animals Camel, Horse and Elephant were kept in high regards here, depicted in plenty of Rajasthani artworks like miniature paintings. Finally the Hadoti belt comprising of Kota and nearby places. Previously known as Rajputaana, during the Independence got renamed as Rajasthan – Place of the Raja’s. We soon arrived at Ratan Vilas, a heritage hotel that we had booked, putting an end to our interesting history lessons. Mr.Shakthi Singh, the hotel manager arrived at the gate to welcome us. As our room was not ready, he asked us to wait in one reception room, a place that was decorated with photos and other displays depicting the rich history and lineage of the Royal family living here. We strolled around the heritage property, a great outdoor swimming pool, good for the pictures, but extremely cold water to even think about taking a dip. It was taking a long time for the room to get ready, we went back to the arrival room.

Shakthi singh-ji offered us coffee and then we had some great conversations with him. He is from Jaisalmer, he provided us with lot of great information on that desert city (more on this conversation in second part of this blog). He exclaimed how wrongly people have stereo-typed Rajasthan to be a desert state. He is a Bhati Rajput, and mentioned how their fellow Rajput clan (Sodha-Rajputs) still lived in Pakistan, and quite happy there. In-fact there was direct train between the other side of Pakistan and Jodhpur, the operations stopped due to terror activities like weapon smuggling. Interestingly, until 1980’s there was also no border fencing done here. About the lineage, he mentioned Bhati Rajputs are from Jaisalmer, Shekawat from Jaipur, Rathore from Udaipur. Information was coming in thick and fast, I tried to hold on to most of it, I think. We were then provided the room, it was super clean with great heritage feel, we instantly liked it.

We started at 1pm from the hotel. The history and geography now had to be complemented with some culinary experience, we requested our driver to take us to Gypsy Dining Hall restaurant, a very popular Thali restaurant in Jodhpur. We ordered for meals for me and my wife, Rs.500/- each, kids have to be taken kids thali for Rs.300/-. And then the feast rolled on. One after another, the Rajasthani dishes treated us with pure delight. Dal Bhaati Churma was simply amazing, but the show stopper of this meal was the Ker Sangri dish, a brilliant Rajasthani delicacy that is made using dried Ker berries and Sangri beans, authentic and local to Marwar region. It only grows around this desert region, taste was superb. Chaach (thick butter milk), Hot Roti’s, variety of curries, dal khichdi and Halwa was one of the best we had.

While having this Thali, a thought struck my mind “Boy, am I so happy to be alive!”. That was the culinary level this meal took me to, simply brilliant & unforgettable. Best part was that Aishani, our daughter, who isn’t much of an Indian food fan, was equally relishing it, without us having to check on her. With a thoroughly enjoyed lunch in our belly, we now started our sight seeing.

First up was the Umaid Bhavan palace museum. The exterior looked stunning, but we didn’t enjoy the interiors much, mostly because it was quite crowded with not-so-well mannered folks inside. After the quick tour, we went to the vintage car museum nearby. We could not see the cars very well due to the reflection of sunlight on the supposedly transparent glass, not a good experience, although the cars were quite cool. Next we went to Mandore Gardens, the driver mentioned this was built in memory of Mandodari, Ravana’s wife, but didn’t have more details.

Bit away from the city, this place has good content, with two phenomenal temple structures. Alas, it was not at all maintained, such a sad state. They could have probably charged some entry fees and use that for maintenance (its free entry now). Huge army of langurs inside this enclosure, probably in the range of hundreds, but seemed to peacefully co-exist with humans here. As we were wandering the park, we passed by a Ravanhatta (traditional Rajasthani string instrument) player, an old man seated on the footpath. He announced to us “Thoda Suniye! aur bakshish dheejeye” (Listen for a while and please tip). His requesting tone was quite moving, so we asked him to play for us.

I had the privilege to sit next to him while he played the very popular “Padhaaro hamare desh” tune amongst others, I paid him some tip and thanked for his music.

We requested Surender-ji to drive us to Sardar market, the most popular shopping area of this town. The market was (as expected) full of chaos, especially being a weekend, or maybe this is the case everyday, who knows. We did manage to buy some kurtas for myself and some dress for Aishani. We then had one of the best lassi’s – Makkhaniya Lassi for Rs.50/- at Shri Mishrilal Hotel near the market arch. What an awesome rich taste! No wonder this place is so popular. We returned back to our hotel. After a brief rest, we walked down for dinner at the hotel, the bonfire was ready and we had a chat with the house keeping staff, busy preparing the bonfire, he was a local from Jodhpur. We went around the property to click some nice pictures.

After this, the lady of the house, queen herself came and started talking to us. She generally talked about how she and her husband manage the place, with only 19 rooms, try to make it very clean & comfortable place to stay. She was from Shekawati Rajput clan married to Jodhpur prince, generally talked about the status of Royal families left in Rajasthan. It was an engaging and nice conversation. We then had delicious soup and Chicken tikka for dinner, and called it a night. Fantastic Day 1 at Jodhpur, what a start to this trip. Few things caught my observation today: 1) Abundance of sweet shops, and how people loved their sweets here. 2) Most buildings (at-least in main road) are made from palace wall like material, same brownish red colored stones. 3) There was a lot of poverty outside the Royalty. Next day we drove to Jaisalmer.

On Day 4, we drove back from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, reached the elegant Jasvant Thada at around 3pm. Beautiful monument, carved out of marble, with good view of Umaid Palace and Mehrangarh fort. We strolled around, majorly clicking pics, spent around 40-45 mins here.

After this, we went to visit the world famous Mehrangarh fort. Entry costs Rs.200/- per adult and Rs.100/- per kid. Probably given these entry charges, the fort has been well maintained. Lot of picturesque moments as we walk the sometimes very steep walkway, ascending the majestic fort.

There were great exhibits of palanquins, swords, daggers, armours, etc. Aishani got fascinated with the paintings and cribs. And finally the epic view of the Blue city from the top. We reached the top deck, and saw there was another temple that could be visited. We, however, thought to just relax here and click some great pictures. Coming back, it was almost sunset and at this time, we saw swifts (birds) flying swiftly back to their nests, which they had built on the ceiling of various entrances around the fort, this was very nice sight, especially for kids. We went again to Sardar Hotel and requested to be dropped near the famous Janata Sweet Home eatery. We relished the fantastic Mirchi Bada, Dal Kachori and Jalebi here.

The Makkhaniya Lassi wasnt great here, definitely recommend the other shop near Sardar market for this. Walk around the Sardar market was interesting, lot of shops selling different stuff. Shwetha managed to buy some Jodhpuri leather sandals, and then we came back to our hotel, Karni Bhawan. We weren’t happy with the room quality here, based on our previous hotel experiences. There was a nice magazine called Rajputana Collection, where I read about the glorious history of Bikaner, another city nearby. Highlight of Day 4 was definitely the majestic Mehrangarh fort, the elegant Jasvant Thada, eating at Janata Sweet home & the shopping experience. These were some great memories of Jodhpur we would take back home.

Next blog will be on our Incredible trip to the Thar desert & the little town Jaisalmer. If not already done, I kindly request you to subscribe to my blogpost, thank you very much!