After our first experience of Indian Railways we arrived in Jodhpur on Christmas Eve. Our hotel, the Haveli Inn Pal and its smarter sister Pal Haveli, seem to be something of a Jodhpur institution and are well placed in the old city near the main market and Victorian clocktower and immediately below the looming presence of the Mehrangarh Fort. As you can see from the photo Jodhpur is called "the Blue City" for obvious reasons.
On Christmas Day I went for a run through the streets of the old city, providing locals with some harmless amusement, before Sue and I scaled the heights leading to the Fort and did the tourist thing with our audio guides. The scale of the fort is awesome, like something out of a fairytale or a fantasy novel and the decoration exquisite and well preserved. Somehow the plummy Indian tones of the audio guide narrator sucking up to Jodhpur's royal family just added to the grandeur. But like everywhere in this country the sheer numbers of people and the noise are overwhelming.
In Christmas Day evening we dined at "Indique" Pal Haveli's rooftop restaurant with superb views of the Fort and the Clocktower. Occasionally it's nice to play the affluent tourist and go somewhere smart that serves alcohol, though it comes with the uncomfortable reminder that however much we pretend otherwise, we are of a wealthy elite surrounded by an ocean of dirt, poverty and despair.
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