Jodhpur is Intense - Rajasthan ( India's Blue City )

I’m in Jodhpur right now and in this  raw blog I’m gonna show you guys how this city is so beautiful and  historic and so freaking intense.  

Alright guys I’ve just arrived in Jpuodhr and  this is my first time here. The last time I was even close to this part of India was like in the  mid 90s so I don't really remember it.

Right now my internet isn't working so I can't get an uber  so I have to figure out how to get to my hostel with uh I guess a indian of taxi or auto. Pretty  sure I’m getting scammed but don't see any other way because my sim card's not working sure that auto just scammed me so if you don't  want to get scammed don't get in that guy's auto.  

Okay I just came to my hostel where I have  a private room and the room is okay there's like a very ancient lock that I haven't used in a  while but the roof is the main thing. There's a sick ass view of the whole fort right from here  and it's a lot closer than I thought it was. 

I think it's less than a kilometer away from here so  I’m probably gonna go explore there but first I’m gonna go head into sort of the old town area and  see some stuff and get some food and everything This seems to be a market right in the middle of  old town. It was named after maharaja Sardar Singh who also built this huge clock behind me which  is called Ghanta Ghar. 

There's all kinds of shops around here selling everything. Doesn't look like  it's anything too pricey or fancy so if you were to come shopping here make sure you bargain or  you'll end up paying like five times the price

okay now I’m hungry and I’m gonna try out this  local favorite place called shahi samosa. I’m guessing they sell samosas but the item that I  was recommended here is called piyaaz ki kachori which I guess has onions because piazz means  onions but I have no idea what kachori is so I’m about to try it and find it out. This is so busy  there's but there's barely any place to stand here I’m gonna try out the piyaaz ki  kachori now. I don't know what that was

So guys it was impossible to find a place to stand  even there forget about finding a place to sit and eat so I had to walk for a few minutes to try  these uh piyaaz ki kachodis which are basically some deep fried stuff with a lot of onion  and dough in it all right let's try this

This tastes a lot like a samosa basically.Definitely more onions in it than a  samosa but it's like a huge samosa A few quick things that I’ve noticed about  Jodhpur for so far is that the auto rickshaws are usually a different color than the one  I’m used to so it's not yellow and black like it was in Kolkata and Mumbai.  It's a lot more yellow and green.  

Speaking of colors the people here are dressed  in the most colorful outfits I’ve ever seen all the women are like super dressed up and  like wearing really really bright colors

Definitely a lot of colorful clothing over  here and these are all handmade and Jodhpur is in general very famous for being one of the  biggest markets for handicrafts and handmade work in India. So the city of Jodhpur was actually  founded in 1459 by this guy named Rao Jodha who established this as the capital of his kingdom and  the city went on to be very successful because it was on this very important trade route between  Delhi and Gujarat and the kingdom he established  is called the kingdom of Marwar. The people who  lived here are called the Marwari people.

which is super interesting to me because when I was a  kid growing up in Bangladesh my neighbors next door to me were actually Marwari people and they  spoke the language with each other like they were  from Bangladesh but their ancestors  were all from Marwar and they made the best vegetarian food I’ve ever had so I’m  excited to try more food from this place.

So Jodhpur is often called Rajasthan's blue  city and it becomes pretty obvious where it gets that name when you walk around  town and see all these blue buildings I’m trying to go up to the fort on this way that google maps is telling me to go but  everyone else told me to go the other way  

so I’m probably going the wrong way but I just  want to give it a shot because I know I can't get it in the fort anyways with my gimbal and cameras  and everything so I just want to try this route.  

So I’m still on route to this temple. At least  I’m going somewhere and once you sort of have a vantage point of the city it starts to  be very clear that a lot of these houses are super blue. When I was walking around it  looked like it was only like 20 % but I guess a lot of these houses don't have like a blue  exterior but have like a blue roof top because it looks entirely blue from here and one of the  reasons the buildings are blue is because blue as a color is a good reflector of heat and  this place gets hot as hell in the summer

So I’m at the spot with a lot of cute little  squirrels and behind me is the main fort of  Jodhpur the Mehranghar fort which is also the  largest fort in all of Rajasthan. This is a colossal fort. It's pretty much been here since  the city of Jodhpur I think and in its 500 years of existence it has never been overtaken which  is pretty obvious because it stands on this  huge 150 meter high hill, takes up all of it and  there's three kilometers of walls protecting 

it on all sides so it's pretty much impossible to  capture from a medieval point of view. I can't really go up any further. I’d have to go around  and go in so I’m gonna save the interior of the fort for tomorrow but this is a perfect spot to  end the day because now I can get my aerial shots

So turns out I didn't screw up that  bad and this is actually a sunset viewpoint so I’m actually going to try  to go home now before it gets too dark. So it's day two and I’m finally going inside  the fort, the museum. Only doing this with my camera  .so it's gonna be a little bit shaky and I just  got harassed by the security here for like the last 30 minutes. Usually I don't put up with that  stuff but now I kind of have to because I need to catch a train in a couple of hours. Don't  want any unexpected delays right here

There's some incredible  architecture all throughout this fortress and on the rooftop  when you come here you see like thousands of kites flying over the place and  that's because these kites are protected by the fort and they're fed every day, like  more than a thousand of them it's crazy.  

So I’m on the rooftop of the fort and you can see  all the cannons that were used to defend the fort back in the day. So behind me right there is the  favorite temple of Rao Jodha and he used to come here every day. I don't really have time to go  down there right now because I have to run and catch a train to get out of here asap but I’m  pretty sure I was on the other side of the wall  

right behind that temple yesterday so I guess it's  coming full circle. Okay so right now I am at the spot next to the fort which is very special to  me and is the reason that I came to Jodhpur.  

Ten years ago this movie came out from  the Batman series, The Dark Knight Rises and is one of my favorite movies ever by one of my  favorite directors ever about one of my favorite comic book characters ever and I was a pretty  big comic book nerd back in the late 90s and  early 2000s. There's this very famous scene where  Batman sort of escapes a prison and there's a huge fort behind it and when I saw that in the movie  I was like okay I need to go here. I need to find  

where it is. When I looked it up it was in India  surprisingly and then when I looked it up where exactly it was it was in Rajasthan and I knew I  had sort of been in the area when I was a little kid so I asked my mom like, “mom have we been  to Jodhpur?” and she was like, “no we haven't”,  and I marked it on my google maps as this is  somewhere I definitely want to go when I have the  chance. And that's the reason I’m here in the city  basically. But I came here and turns out it's not actually a well that he escapes from which leads  to a prison. It's just like a four foot wall and there's no hole in the middle going down anywhere.  No climbing needed or anything like that.  

But let me tell you more about the scene because  I think it's like super interesting. Batman is basically trapped in this underground prison  but the only way to get out is to climb this very high well all the way to the top. He tries  to climb it every time and he fails every time but every time he's doing it while he's carrying  this heavy rope on his side so that in case he fails he has something to like hold on to so he  doesn't die. But then at the end he realizes that the added weight of the rope is what's holding  him back from making this last jump that he needs to do to get out of the well and then he tries  it without the rope and then he does it and he gets out and he saves Gotham. But I think there's  a really important lesson to be learned here about how we can stop ourselves from  succeeding if we're too afraid of failing

I’m getting one last look at  it on the rooftop of my hostel but anyways I’m gonna end this vlog  here because I have to catch a train to Jaisalmer in the next hour and a half.  If you want to see more videos by me from India  and from everywhere else feel free to follow me and if you want real time  travel updates from me feel free to follow me on  

Catch you guys the  next blog from somewhere...