Steve and I were dropped off in Jodhpur's hotel in the middle of the afternoon after a long drive and were in dire need of stretching our legs so we took an autorickshow and headed for the famous clocktower.
The sheer volume of the crowds was at times silencing the constant horn honking and due to a very approximate map in our guidebook we were not sure 100% where to go.
Now see, this is not good when you're travelling on your own in Asia. In less than a nanosecond we were surrounded by people asking us where we wanted to go... no actually, some of them were asking us where we wanted to go but the majority was just pushing us to go where they wanted us to go. And those were the good ones! We were offered the usual things, suspicious guides for the bazaar, the best of this and that, spices, clothes, bangles, food, hotels and what not.
Touts a part, they were all kind and when we said we were ok thanks, we were left mainly alone...that means with only a circle of 20 or so people around us, which is really less scary than to be the noisy attention of the whole square.
The place we were looking for is a famous spice shop, MV Spices, that according to our book had several emulators, apparently if the name of the shop was MV spices, there were some 15 MG or TS or VB or MN Spice shops to be found in the same area.
Looking at the map was bringing more harm than aid since it located the shop on a spot were there was a huge sign for car parts, we figured that was not what we were looking for and headed on for a bit of exploration. Again pulled aside in every direction by eager helpers we were sometimes even threatened to "sir come here, now!" by shop keepers who were beaconing us with a look of wisdom in their face as if to say "you don't know you want to come to my shop, but I do!".
More by chance than anything else we found it.
Of course it was the only shop not trying to get us inside.
And we understood why as soon as we got inside.
Apparently not only our footprint guidebook was raving about the place, but it was also in LP, Routard and several other famous guidebooks, the shop was literally covered wall to wall with photos of happy and somewhat scruffy looking westerners, depicted in the act of sniffing from small bags of spices.
The young guy attending the shop was very knowledgeable about the limits imposed by australian customs and sealed everything so that we wouldn't have any problem.
Happy with our shopping we then realized we didn't have much more to do since all the sightseeing was planned for the day afterwards.
We then decided to go for a lassi.
The best lassi in town is most certainly the one by the gate, we were seated inside and given 2 masala lassi.
Appallingly sweet and thick, they were really good and well worth the surprised look on the faces of the other lassi-lovers.
As soon as we got out again we took a small tour of the bazaar and were kind of stuck again since we were supposed to find a place where we could get coffee but it seemed to be closed.
Walking slowly towards the right end of the street to avoid the cars and bikes I noticed that one of the normally placid and stoned-by-the-heat cows was looking at me in a not so friendly way.
Now, for those of you who have never been to India or Nepal I have to explain something.
Cows are off course sacred animals and cannot be harmed.
Fair enough.
That means that you can easily find a super skinny cow roaming freely on the streets with a ratio of 1 cow per 4 or 5 people.
And that's a LOT of cows.
Normally they are very peaceful animals, not moving much, crouching on the side of the streets, eating out garbage bags and snoozing the days away.
That's normally.
In Jodhpur this cow was by no means peaceful, not grazing at a garbage bag, certainly not sleeping, it was looking at me as if I had perpetrated some horrible sin against it. It was personal.
I hurried past it and forgot about it in a flash.
Some more walking, some more useless looking at the useless map, we looked at each other and called it a night.
At a certain point I have the unpleasant feeling something is staring at me.
I turn and I see another cow this time with huge horns, really BIG, coming towards me bending down its head, horns in an attack position.
I don't have time to wonder what I might have done to offend the sacred animal, and sacred or not I'm not going to stand there and be impaled, I move away quickly and turn to look at Steve who gets treated in exactly the same way.
And right then I get it! We're both dressed in bright red!!! Those obviously were not cows but bulls and our breezy and inconsiderate use of the red colour right under their noses really did not agree with them!
One more lesson learned, never wear red in India!!!
The sheer volume of the crowds was at times silencing the constant horn honking and due to a very approximate map in our guidebook we were not sure 100% where to go.
Now see, this is not good when you're travelling on your own in Asia. In less than a nanosecond we were surrounded by people asking us where we wanted to go... no actually, some of them were asking us where we wanted to go but the majority was just pushing us to go where they wanted us to go. And those were the good ones! We were offered the usual things, suspicious guides for the bazaar, the best of this and that, spices, clothes, bangles, food, hotels and what not.
Touts a part, they were all kind and when we said we were ok thanks, we were left mainly alone...that means with only a circle of 20 or so people around us, which is really less scary than to be the noisy attention of the whole square.
The place we were looking for is a famous spice shop, MV Spices, that according to our book had several emulators, apparently if the name of the shop was MV spices, there were some 15 MG or TS or VB or MN Spice shops to be found in the same area.
Looking at the map was bringing more harm than aid since it located the shop on a spot were there was a huge sign for car parts, we figured that was not what we were looking for and headed on for a bit of exploration. Again pulled aside in every direction by eager helpers we were sometimes even threatened to "sir come here, now!" by shop keepers who were beaconing us with a look of wisdom in their face as if to say "you don't know you want to come to my shop, but I do!".
More by chance than anything else we found it.
Of course it was the only shop not trying to get us inside.
And we understood why as soon as we got inside.
Apparently not only our footprint guidebook was raving about the place, but it was also in LP, Routard and several other famous guidebooks, the shop was literally covered wall to wall with photos of happy and somewhat scruffy looking westerners, depicted in the act of sniffing from small bags of spices.
The young guy attending the shop was very knowledgeable about the limits imposed by australian customs and sealed everything so that we wouldn't have any problem.
Happy with our shopping we then realized we didn't have much more to do since all the sightseeing was planned for the day afterwards.
We then decided to go for a lassi.
The best lassi in town is most certainly the one by the gate, we were seated inside and given 2 masala lassi.
Appallingly sweet and thick, they were really good and well worth the surprised look on the faces of the other lassi-lovers.
As soon as we got out again we took a small tour of the bazaar and were kind of stuck again since we were supposed to find a place where we could get coffee but it seemed to be closed.
Walking slowly towards the right end of the street to avoid the cars and bikes I noticed that one of the normally placid and stoned-by-the-heat cows was looking at me in a not so friendly way.
Now, for those of you who have never been to India or Nepal I have to explain something.
Cows are off course sacred animals and cannot be harmed.
Fair enough.
That means that you can easily find a super skinny cow roaming freely on the streets with a ratio of 1 cow per 4 or 5 people.
And that's a LOT of cows.
Normally they are very peaceful animals, not moving much, crouching on the side of the streets, eating out garbage bags and snoozing the days away.
That's normally.
In Jodhpur this cow was by no means peaceful, not grazing at a garbage bag, certainly not sleeping, it was looking at me as if I had perpetrated some horrible sin against it. It was personal.
I hurried past it and forgot about it in a flash.
Some more walking, some more useless looking at the useless map, we looked at each other and called it a night.
At a certain point I have the unpleasant feeling something is staring at me.
I turn and I see another cow this time with huge horns, really BIG, coming towards me bending down its head, horns in an attack position.
I don't have time to wonder what I might have done to offend the sacred animal, and sacred or not I'm not going to stand there and be impaled, I move away quickly and turn to look at Steve who gets treated in exactly the same way.
And right then I get it! We're both dressed in bright red!!! Those obviously were not cows but bulls and our breezy and inconsiderate use of the red colour right under their noses really did not agree with them!
One more lesson learned, never wear red in India!!!
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