The Blue City of Jodhpur!

I have just spent the past few days in Jodpur which is a very old city located in the western region of the country kinda near the Pakistan border. The city is a maze of tiny streets and alleys filled with small temples, bizarre bazaars, chanting sadhus, painted elephants, pungent aromas, swirling winds, open sewers, and sweltering heat!

The city was quite enjoyable, but the people here have pretty bad manners and the businessmen in this region lack any kind of ethics. Just about everyone is looking to squeeze as much as possible out of every single transaction whether a 15 rupee water that should only be 10, a 60 rupee taxi that should only be 25, or a "handmade, pure silk" scarf that is really a blend of cotton and silk and made by a machine. If you ask for a little, they give you a lot. Like if you say you want a chai (which is normally about the size of a shot), these unscrupulous guys will bring out a chai bigger than everyone else around you is drinking- the biggest you have ever seen in India- and then give you grief when you tell them you want the regular size. It is like dealing with that guy, James, at Four Winds International food in Pensacola! Even if you give a beggar something, they don't say thank you, they immediately ask you for more. The entrepreneurs all call out and even chase down tourists and dealing with their constant pestering can be quite a chore.

However, I did a lot of shopping over the past 2 days and was able to ship the 16 pound package out today for around $75. I guess that is a good deal (well, only if it makes it back home), This part of the country is world renowned for its textiles and some of you women out there would have gone crazy for this stuff and would have easily spent hundreds of dollars. You can actually end up getting a great value if you bargain hard and the quality of this stuff is unrivaled. It usually takes about 15 minutes of bickering to get the price to come down about 25%. Who really ever knows what the true "Indian" price would be for this stuff. The worst is when you walk into a shop that says fixed price and then there are no prices on anything. What a load of crap!!! Indians all over have warned me that the businessmen in this part of the country are real assholes, so I was already expecting it and they haven't let me down.

They only really good guy I met in this city was the proprietor of the guest house I am staying in. He helped me take care of some business and gave me good advice, but even here I think he was skimming a little bit off the top for things he was providing. I am sure that he got a cut of some of that $75 shipping fee, because he called up the company and had them send a boy out for the package. Either way, Yogi's Guesthouse was a nice place to stay, in a quiet part of the city, and was a great value. I would stay here again.