Travel Diaries – Jodhpur #1

Hey everyone! The past few weeks have been insanely busy and plus I was going through a phase of writer’s block so decided to take a break. Today I returned from my Craft study trip to Jodhpur and Udaipur and have a ton of stuff to share with ya’ll.

So we had an overnight train on 9th of March, which got delayed by 2.5 hours. Surprise surprise. I wanted to take a flight but apparently for my group members it was getting out of budget. Anyways. Next day, while we were supposed to reach by 10, we actually reached by 12:45. So we booked Mango Hotels, for our 3 night stay.

The hotel was pretty and decent. I had a very cozy and comfortable room. After freshening up we decided to have lunch…. so we went to Kalinga Restaurant. I had been there before when I came with my family, its a pretty good place with awesome food. So its a must eat in Jodhpur. Don’t forget to order Laal Maans, its a spicy cooked red meat with some mouth watering flavors, speciality of Rajasthan.

From left to right – Butter Chicken, Chicken Lollipop, Butter Naan. (Oven baked bread covered with butter.)

After this we decided to walk around the local market area. We booked a cab and went to the local Clock Tower Market.

This is supposed to be the most posh area for shopping around Jodhpur city. The clock tower was built by Maharaja Sardar Singh, after whom the area has been named. In this market you will find a ton of stuff from clothing to textiles, to craft items, decorative items, street food, etc.

There is a blast of colors in one’s eye, as you enter the area. Right in front of you stands the clock tower.

Clock tower during sunset.

After this roaming around a while, we went furthur in and came across this craft shop. We asked this guy about Kathputli’s (Kathputli art is our research topic for this craft trip ) and he gave us some crazy information. So apparently, Kathputli art is dead now. No one practices it anymore. You will barely find any in and around the place. Honestly, we didn’t find any either. Every person we talked to said this art is no more.

After this information, we decided to head back to the hotel and have rest. The train ride was exhausting.

For dinner we decided to go to On the Rocks. Its a nice decent cafe, in a jungle look. The entrance is like a safari. On the right is the restaurant, on the left is the bar and club.

After this long and tiring day we finally went back to hotel and had a good night’s sleep. Lets see what we have in story for tomorrow.