Happy Independence Day! This is the day that Indians celebrate their freedom from British rule. In 1947, the English moved back to England and allowed India to make its own mistakes. I’m not sure yet how they celebrate Independence Day. I know they don’t drink, however, because the bars and restaurants in our hotel don’t serve alcohol today.
Before getting back in the car for another expedition, we visited Kumbalgarh Fort. Its wall is the second biggest in the world, at 36 km in length. It is a massive structure, built between 1459 ad 1472(ish), and housed 20 000 residents. It is situated on top of a rather imposing mountain, with mountains around it. I imagine it would be hard to see the fort if you were an attacking enemy because all of those hills are in the way.
This fort was also the King’s and Queen’s residence. It does not seem to have been popular to have kings and queens mingling with each other too much back in the olden days because we always see the “King’s bedroom” and the “Queen’s bedroom”. Each has visitors’ rooms and servants’ quarter attached. It is amazing to see the technology that people had back then. They had a water holding tank, toilets, rooms made to let in as much light as possible, and toilets that are not too dissimilar to the ones that India uses now.
We arrived in Jodhpur at around 2:30, which is strange. We were expecting to drive for at least 6 hours, but it only took us about 4.5 hours. We visited Jodhpur’s downtown area, which has many stalls selling food and other shops selling textiles, medication, and other knick knacks. Mic was not too keen on all of the flies that infiltrated the market. It’s not so bad when you are thinking of buying a samosa and you see a fly on it. At this market, there must have been about 30 lakh flies! That’s 3 million. Three million flies can do a lot of damage to a bowlful of lentils.
There is a stark and noticeable difference between the haves and have nots. We are all constantly surprised at the simple way of life of so many people. India is a developing country, certainly. There are many parts of the country where people live in tents, makeshift houses, lean-tos, or on a bench. We have not yet seen a “suburb” like one would see in Canada. We learned today that our driver, who has been following us from Udaipur to Jodhpur and then off the Jaiselmer, makes around Rs. 4000 per month. That’s about $96 a month in Canada. Wow. Of course, one can live a meager existence on that a mount of money in India, I suppose, but you would never be able to do that in Canada. I would wager that 12-yr olds who get their allowance make more money than that in a month. We usually give him about Rs. 500 per day for a tip, which (I’m sure you can figure this one out, but I’ll tell you anyway) is more than double a day’s wages, or one-eighth of his monthly salary. In contrast to the have-nots, there are those who have reasonably nice houses in the heart of New Delhi. These abodes are still not like Canada’s houses, but it is hard to have a big house with a big yard when you have to share it with 1.2 billion other people in the country.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called “On The Rocks”. It seems to cater to tourists because all of the patrons there were white. The food was definitely not expensive, though. Dinner for four of us cost only $30.00 CAD. Not being able to have alcohol helped keep the costs down. Independence Day is considered a dry day. You can’t buy alcohol at stores and restaurants do not offer alcoholic beverages. How do we usually celebrate Canada Day? Barbecue and beer, of course! India…not so much.
The Clock Tower at Jodhpur Market
