On to Jodhpur

Up early this morning, we wandered around Pushkar some more and spent some time relaxing on the steps of one of the ghats leading to the small lake in the centre of town. We watched a few boys swim in the lake, an old sadhu (holy man) pray on the shore, and plenty of kids coming up to us asking us to take their photos for 10 rupees (NOTHING is free in India, and kids have caught on to this as well). Since there isn't much else to do here in Pushkar, we headed back to our hotel, packed up and caught a bus back to Ajmer, where we hoped we'd find a connecting bus to Jodhpur.

Back in Ajmer, our only option to get to Jodhpur was a non-airconditioned 'deluxe' bus. Being a 5+ hour drive and over 40C, we were hesitant to accept this, but didn't feel like staying in Ajmer all day either. So we bought the tickets, made another unfortunate stop at the bus station toilets, and headed off just as the heat of the day really started to burn. But it wasn't too bad at all. The bus was a normal Greyhound type, just without airconditiong. The trip west to Jodhpur passed fairly quickly.

Arriving in Jodhpur around 4:30, we had a challenging time dodging all of the rickshaw touts but finally made it to our hotel of choice. It wasn't quite in our price range, so the packs were back on and we continued through the maze of alleys to another place, The Blue House. This turned out to be the winner, so we gratefully dropped our bags in the room, ordered two (overpriced) beers that were especially delicious, had a cold shower, and relaxed a bit before having dinner at the hotel's rooftop restaurant. Jodhpur is on the edge of the Great Thar Desert, the old city still surrounded by a massive medieval wall like Jaipur. Looking over the city, high up on a hill, is Jodhpur's fort, Meherangarh. It looks like a castle jutting out of the desert rocks, and we have a great view from our hotel. It was surprisingly cool, with a much-needed breeze blowing as we watched the sun set through a haze of clouds and had masala tomato curry for dinner.