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| nicknamed for obvious reasons. |
jodhpur and udaipur
next on the itinerary were the cities of jodhpur and udaipur (with a stay between the two in a village, which i'll get to later). jodhpur, "the blue city" and also the birthplace of jodhpur trousers (the mahajara was a polo fanatic), was a major trading center and the capitol of the now-dissolved kingdom of marwar, so naturally it had a major fort. unlike the other forts we saw, this one - mehrangarh fort - had a good museum in which some of the more luxurious rooms were preserved and open to the public. (again, no furnishings, but the walls and windows provided enough evidence of the luxury that must have been on display.)
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| mehrangarh fort; detail from an interior courtyard; the "palace of flowers" room, where the dancing girls performed for the maharaja; the sitting room for the last maharaja to live in the fort | |
the next major city on our tour was udaipur, which is also known as "the city of lakes" and "the venice of the east." there are some impressively large man-made lakes in the area (and the people who built their houses below the dam will be very unhappy if the city ever has to open it), but there wasn't anything venice-like about it, at least not that i could tell. the palace museum wasn't bad, but this being the fourth palace we'd seen, we were kind of "up to here" with palaces. outside the palace walls was the jagdish temple, which is an impressive enough structure, but the people inside the temple and those begging on the steps made for better photographs:
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