The journey to Jodphur demonstrates another benefit of the Indrail Pass. Nearly all these journeys were over-nighters. It saves on hotel accommodation and daytime is not wasted traveling. It is a moving hotel room. You check in, it gets dark, you go to bed and when you wake up you are at your next destination. It depends when you set off as to how your compartment is set up when you embark. If the beginning of the journey is during the day the compartment has two wide bench seats facing each other with a small table under the window (which does open). The back rests are the same size as the seats themselves and as night approavches the railway staff come in and unlock them from the wall and pull them up so that what you end up with is bunk beds on either side of the carriage.
This journey began, or was not scheduled to begin before, 9.15pm so the compartment was already set up for bed. I shared the compartment with 3 other British travelers, a girl called Claire, her dad and another man who I think was her dad's friend.
Security on the trains is tight. Not only do you lock your bags to steel wire loops under the seats but also once you go to sleep you can lock the doors so no-one can get in, not even the staff.
No sooner had the train started moving off than the doors were locked and Claire's dad started rolling up and soon the air was think with the pungent aroma of finest black hash. Oh dear! This Indian leg of my trip was becoming a bit of a smoke fest. We chatted and smoked and eventually went to sleep.
I arrived at the Station in Jodphur the following morning. I don't know where Claire and the others were going but they must have stayed on the train because I was alone. Claire was very nice indeed and it seemed a shame that I would never see her again. That's life on the road. What did JJ Cale sing? "A drifter's life is a drifter's wife, don't say I didn't tell you so". Before leaving the station I made a reservation for Ajmer the same evening. I checked my back pack into left luggage and freshened up in the First Class Waiting Room facilities, probably had something to eat too and then headed off to see the very impressive fort.
One of the reasons that I purchased an Insight Guide to Rajasthan while I was there was because, try as I might, there were some pictures that I couldn't take. The Guide had some terrific pictures in it. There was a double page spread of Jaislamer, I seem to remember. It was probably largely because I had the Insight Guide that I seem to have taken only one photograph/slide in Jodphur. It does more than peeve me that both the Insight Guide and Lonely Planet Guide have either been mislaid or lent to someone who has forgotten to give them back.
I am afraid that therefore there are no pictures of the interiors of the fort nor the views of the Brahmin blue houses in the city below from the ramparts. One thing I do remember about Jodhpur Fort was the fact that the entrances were designed in such away as to make it difficult to attack by way of an elephant charge. The monumental main gates, a series of them, are all at 90 degrees to the way up to them. This means that an elephant cannot charge at them because just as you reach the door you have to turn and all the momentum, even if you could get any going up the steep approach, is lost.
Another thing that is lost is the sixth postcard in a series I sent home describing my time in Jaisalmer. My mother had them in an album and I have referred to them to jog my memory. The fifth card says "Yesterday, I took a quick tour around Jodphur Fort - The Majestic Fort (+ now museum). Absolutely amazing. Quite the most monumental gates - a series of them, all on corners of a steep....." and that's it. I think I must have written that card (and the lost one) before leaving my room at my next destination because I am sure there is no way I could possibly have written it after I had left my room.
Until we had the extension built here at home the front door was positioned similarly to the gates to Jodhpur Fort. There was no mention of the possibility of elephant charges in the Estate Agent's particulars and I suspect that the reason the property was designed that way will never be known. The fact remained that as a result of having to turn 90 degrees as soon as you opened the front door you could not bring any furniture in. We had to take out the double glazed windows to get the sofas in. The developer had also "designed" the stairs so that no large items could be taken up them.
