Day 6 Jodhpur

With 2.5 million people, Jodhpur is the second largest city in Rajasthan. It was founded by maharaja Jodha in 1459. It’s often called “the blue city” because many buildings are painted light blue. As we drove to our first stop, the fort, we noticed the city was far more cleaner than other cities we visited. The immense and very impressive Mehrangarh fort includes several palaces and a very good museum, the best we have seen so far. The architecture is also amazing – both outside plasterwork and carvings, and interior opulence with gold, silver and lavish ornaments. They also had a very high class museum store. From there, it was a very short ride to the maharaja’s cremation complex, which consists of a palace-like white structure used for prayer and meditation, and another small structure where the actual cremation takes place. Both are made of white marble. Nearby is a cremation complex for ordinary people – this one built of sandstone. From there we were obliged to go to a shopping venue, and then to the Palace Hotel for lunch inside. A really nice hotel, and a very good lunch. Almost all the meals we have both on the train and in outside venues include some western dishes and many Indian dishes. The last stop of the day was the Umaid Bhawan palace, which is the palace, in which the current maharaja of Jodhpur resides. Bo was particularly interested in this palace because it has a Polish connection. A Polish artist Stefan Norblin (http://culture.pl/en/article/rediscovering-norblin-the-pole-who-filled-indian-palaces-with-art ), who escaped from Poland at the beginning of World War II and ended up in India, was commissioned by the maharaja to decorate this newly built palace in the 1940s. He not only painted many murals there in the art deco style, but also designed furniture and layout. It was great to see that his work is acknowledged in the palace museum, but only two murals are on public view, The rest is in the private residence section of the palace. Bo wanted to negotiate her way in to see at least a few, but there was no time. Then back to the train for an early departure.