Jodhpur Delhi Train - November 27th

This is our last full day in India (although tomorrow will be all but 20 minutes in India).  We are getting the train back to Delhi at 20:00 but before that we still have some time to spare in Jodhpur.  I had wanted to go to the Umaid Bahwan palace, the last of the Rajasthani palaces built just before Indian independence (and therefore opulent on a twentieth century scale) but apparently most of it is either a hotel that has a cover charge to enter, or the current Maharaja’s living quarters.

However I got outvoted by Dorota who wanted to go on a trip around some rural villages to the south.  This trip takes us to the Bishnoi, a small group of villages that are regarded as ultra-ecologists.  Not only do the not kill animals, they don’t cut down trees.  In fact 363 of them lost their lives 302 years ago defending a grove of trees from the woodcutters sent to get wood for the fort’s construction.  Naturally we go to see the monument marking this sacrifice.  As this is an area where animals thrive, we also get to do a little safari, and see some birds and antelope.

After that we visit a number of villages where we see different traditional crafts, milling flour, pottery, carpet weaving, being performed.  Due to our stomachs’ weakened condition we forgo the locally cooked lunch, however we are feeling better so after when we get back into town we go back to the market to the Omelette man, a world famous street food vendor who only sells very good omelette sandwiches.

The rest of the evening is spent in our hotel catching up on sorting out our photos and getting up to date with our blogs.  After dinner, where we venture back onto Indian food for the first time in 3 days, we go to the train station to board our train to Delhi.  Unlike the one from Mumbai to Goa our tourist status doesn’t see us in with other tourists (we couldn’t see any on the platform) but in with the military.  We are sharing a compartment with a man from the Air Force and the wife of an Army Captain and her 6 month old son.  He is actually a very calm child, so sleep actually is easy to achieve once we are on the move.