New today: donkeys on the streets in the old city narrow lanes transporting rubble; Q: how to “tow” a motor scooter? A: ride behind on another scooter with your foot on the back bar of the broken scooter. And another instance of showing your ticket to be allowed to leave – why?
Another Rajasthan city, another fort and this one is a beauty. Never conquered with interesting spikes to repel elephant battering, well above our head height. We’ve got a few student discounts here, and the fort was one, and included a free audio guide, which was fantastic. Better than any of the human guides we’ve had. The tour pointed out many interesting elements, and the collection of artifacts, paintings and craft was really interesting. As an example, they decorated bamboo horizontal screens, not by painting, but by wrapping coloured thread around parts of the bamboo to create an image that looks like a painting.
The women’s quarters were interesting and fully screened so no-one could see in, but they could see out a little. But no males could enter (except the King and close male relatives), and there were no internal partitions so no privacy. Once the woman went in to the quarters, she only left when her husband/consort died, to be burned alive on his pier. Has a lot of the same characteristics of a jail, but they sound well treated.
Then we walked out the back exit (had to show your ticket here) to the old, blue city and through lots of narrow alleys and a traffic jam. We got some directions around the jam, and found ourselves near our hostel so stopped for lunch. Becky only had some roti, but Alan had cashew tissula (luckily not spicy) or similar, and Jamie said his dish was nice. We also had a snack at the fort. Back at the hostel for a couple of hours rest before the sunset tour. Also picked up some milk for tomorrow breakfast, as the local shops don’t open till 10:30 or so, so Alan had to walk a long way this morning for milk.
The sunset tour organised by the hostel (A$3 each) was nice, though the smog means you don’t get spectacular cloud colours like Australia, and then we went to the clock tower, nicely lit up, and had local lassi made on buttermilk, which tasted like our yoghurt, which Becky didn’t like.
Then dinner, which was a saga. The guide said we’d get dinner cheaper if we used Uber eats than going out, so we tried, but the restaurant I’d picked didn’t make a plain dish like biryani, so the guide said pullou was the same, but then the payment failed, and in the end, Alan just walked to the restaurant and got take-away. Oh boy, it was spicy, but jumping forward, the next pullou we tried had no spice.
The hostel had organised a party, which we declined, but they smoked on the rooftop, which flowed straight into our room, so a pretty uncomfortable night prior to an early morning.
Brake Family Adventures 