Bridge the Travel Gap

Village tour around Jodhpur and the Mehranghah fort

We had a lovely week exploring Jodhpur and doing a village tour.

Jodhpur

Jodhpur is known as the blue city and famous for the Mehranghah fort that towers over the city. At our home stay we have a great view from the rooftop of the fort especially when it is lit up at night. The fort is over 500 years and survived battles and sieges. Gates with cannon ball indentations are still visible. There are also in one of the arches of the gates outlines of the hands of past widows who committed suicide after the death of their husband. All this adds to the atmosphere of this wonderful historic site. The fort is slowly being restored and the work done so far is excellent. We came up the back way of the fort which meant a short stroll to the entrance for the 500 rupee ticket which included the audio tour. The audio tour is brilliant and the best one I have come across so far in India. There are 33 stops on the audio tour with some clumped together. Several of the rooms in the Palace are extravagantly decorated.

Village Safari

On our second day we booked a village safari. We spent a great day out seeing wildlife and traditional villages. The morning tour began at the clock tower with a short drive to the countryside. Once there we were lucky to see on our way to the first village some vultures, a mongoose and several deer.

During the day the tour stopped at a sheep and goat herders village and a Bishnoi village where we saw an opium ceremony. Later we visited our guides weavers home. Here we had a lovely vegetarian lunch cooked by out guides mother and saw his home stay bungalows. If we had more time we would have stayed for a few nights. We enjoyed watching the carpet weaving and pottery making demonstrations. We also ended up buying a carpet which will decorate our home when we get back in a few weeks. Great value for money to with the tour costing 800 rupees each including a tasty lunch. The name of the company and link to the tour is Village Safari Day Tours.

This tour is off the tourist trail. I would highly recommend it for people interested in traditional Rajasthan village life. It was nice to get out of the city away from the hustle and bustle of Jodhpur.