jodhpooer

Jumped from jaisalmer to jodhpur…more like jodpooer. Chhagan joined the brodown forces last minute as we were leaving his families village where they made us brothers signified by gifts and bracelets…its nice to have family in india. He was a sweet guy in his early twenties who joined us on the safari and was an excellent cook. It was fun having a local boy on the tour…but in a way he was an outsider too cause he came from a tribe and had very dark skin and people in India are super racist it turns out…a product of the caste system that is still in full effect, dividing classes through marriage and such, with tribal people falling at the bottom of the heap…often times not even allowed to own land.
Anyways, when we got to jodhpooer we had a hard time finding a room cause no one wanted the three of us staying together…some guesthouses don’t even allow Indians to get rooms…doesn’t make for very authentic experience…so we told them off and eventually found a kickass spot filled with art, handpainted walls, and enough room to play honkey da donkey…aka hacky sack.
Jodhpooer was just another busy smelly congested poo ridden Indian city…the only good thing good about it was the massive fort on top of a cliff 100m high where the views were spectacular, but even here we got harassed by the tourist police and weren’t allowed to walk together with chhagan through the fort…it was crap. The view was worth it though…its amazing how all the building fit together in some chaotic order and one alley leads to the next and things somehow have worked out architecturally in India with very little apparent planning. Anyways, after having random people on the street come up and tell us that chhagan wasn’t our friend and we should stay away from him cause hes dangerous and all this, we decided to the fuck out of poo town, and left the next day to pushkar. code