Welcome to the next stop in the 'extended' Golden Triangle route through Rajasthan, welcome to Jodhpur, famous in England for introducing a certain garment worn by the elite whilst pursuing the game of polo - Jodhpurs of course also known here as 'the baggy pant brigade'! Most of our trip we visit the sights and then chill out, so here are the main attractions.... another beautiful Jain Temple.
Another beautiful palace, Umaid Bhawan Palace. What's really special about this palace is that it was designed by the British! This immense pink and white sandstone monster was started 1929, took 3,000 workers 15 years to complete (like Sunderland's metro link!) Also, this is the last palace to be built in India.This is how it looks from the front gate, which is firmly locked to keep the plebs away from the 5 star hotel patrons!
This is the 'sprawl' of Jodhpur - this is the 'polarised' image of India, up on the mountain is a massive palace, then in the city it's nearly all tiny little concrete and lean to shacks. This is the view from the memorial.
This is the glorious Meherangarh Fort, built in 1806, it follows the lines of the hills so well it looks like it has been raised out of the ground. Here's a horrible story for you, inside the main gate there are original hand prints on the wall from the Maharaja widows. They made the prints shortly before hoying themselves on the Maharaja's funeral fire as an act of ultimate devotion to their dead husband, the king. Apparently they sat silently in the flames! A cup of tea if you can tell us what this act is called, your clue is a single word beginning with the letter 'I'?
This is a special part of the fort for the ladies. It keeps the ladies from view while they spy on the goings on below, it's called 'purdah'. In England it's called 'being a peeping Tom' and let me tell you you can go to prison for it!
This is opposite to the picture above - this time from the fort looking back at the memorial. It's called the 'Tomb with a View'!
White marble is a common building material in India and they have some of the best you can get.
What a beautiful little 'palais de-deutche' as Oliver Reed would say. This is one of the special rooms used by the Maharaja to impress his visitors, we were canny impressed like! Again there was some fancy lattice work around this room which unbeknown to visitors the maharina's were crouching behind, again 'cocking' their lugs on the court's goings on and reporting back! (Just in case you think the sun has caused some form of 'growth' - we both have headphones on as we were doing the audiotour!)
Cup of tea answers - As we thought the Outsourcer just couldn't keep from the Google, could you? Be honest Madam cos I know you're too competitive to just take a wild guess - or are we to believe that your first 'wild' guess out of the huge selection of Bond films (over 20 we think) you just happened to pick the correct one! Humm - I'm very suspicious! So... we're giving the benefit of the doubt to our nephew, Lord Farquar for guessing Octopussy.
Rusty - Cup of tea for the name of the wheel - legitimate use of Google on that one!
5 comments:
female slaves immolated themselves in the funeral fires of maharajas ... cup of tea to me then
schmenny xx
Surely the word beginning with I is Idiocy. At least that's what Google told me anyway. Hoying yersell on a fire at the loss of the King? What's that all about? How many wives did he have anyway, greedy ....ard!
Schmenny - did you find any burnt sausages in your back yard on Monday evening? I was at a BBQ just around the corner and might have thrown a few your way in some sort of drunken state.
And Idiocy is the word I'd use for that too.
Paula - I'm afraid it's too late for us North of Manchester. Hopefully, you don't get the same. The 14C heat dried the grass so badly, that the downpour today washed not only the grass, but the topsoil away. I've ordered a few ton of new stuff, but it's only June and it's going to get hotter next month. God help us when August comes around.
Bloody Hell Rusty that sounds a nightmare.....how did you cope in 14oC?!!!
Thankfully I think the downpour bypassed us and instead we got a day of mist/fog and fine drizzle.
Eeeh God, I hope those poor travellers know what they're coming home to if you say it's going to get hotter. Come August, it'll be so hot they'll be wishing they were back in India to cool down. Poor buggers!
From
Paula
Keith - Yer Fatha's answer to your letter i question is ideous.........
.........then he asked for a boiled am sandwich
Paula
nor nee burnt sausages...well only something that could of been originally sausages left in the back lane!!! Was that u.....
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