20 DAYS IN INDIA - Jhodpur
On the 5th day of this trip, an early morning start at Jaisalmer railway station. Quite a sight for the inexperienced India traveller! Station floor and platforms with many people sleeping - a rather overwhelming experience.
Destination Jhodpur: the Blue City. Jodhpur is a city in the Thar Desert of the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan. Its 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort is a former palace that’s now a museum, displaying weapons, paintings and elaborate royal palanquins (sedan chairs). Set on on a rocky outcrop, the fort overlooks the walled city, where many buildings are painted the city’s iconic shade of blue.
The Common Wanderers put travel by train this way (www.thecommonwanderer.com)
“To travel by train in India is, essentially, to journey through (and with) a microcosm of the entire country. From the second you board to the minute you alight at your journey’s end, the whole experience is intense, colourful, confronting, uncomfortable, sweaty, smelly, loud, exciting and wonderful.
Unlike flying, where you’re trapped in a row with a few other strangers, served bland food, and generally bored and cramped up within minutes of sitting in your seat, train travel gifts you an insight into Indian society and its structures. Families share food with other passengers, chaiwallahs traverse the train selling steaming cups of tea, signs blur past in foreign script, and unique landscapes flick past the window like a film. The sights, smells and sounds of India and her people reveal themselves to you with every turn of the clacking wheels.
Simply put, there’s an energy on the trains and platforms of the Indian rail system that just doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else in the world.”
